An X account with the handle AIPAC Tracker recently disclosed that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has already received more than $524,000 from AIPAC and the Israel lobby, as per a report run by the Federal Election Commission (FEC), an independent government agency whose purpose is to enforce campaign finance law in United States federal elections.

“The Speaker of the House is working for a foreign entity. #RejectAIPAC,” it posted on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. AIPAC Tracker monitors the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Israel lobby and their anti-democratic influence.

The revelation came on the heels of previous allegations against Johnson. He was found to have accepted large donations from a pro-Israeli lobby to push in Congress for the approval of a hefty $14 billion aid package for Israel.

Enraged by the alleged blatant corruptive ways of the House speaker, X users replied to the thread calling Johnson a “foreign agent” or “Judas,” referring to one of Jesus’ 12 apostles who was notorious for betraying the Lord by disclosing His whereabouts for 30 pieces of silver.

We ran an FEC report on Speaker Mike Johnson and found he has now received >$524,000 from AIPAC and the Israel lobby.

The Speaker of the House is working for a foreign entity. #RejectAIPAC pic.twitter.com/OgbsOCotwk

— AIPAC Tracker (@TrackAIPAC) April 25, 2024

AIPAC was reported to have donated around $95,000 to the speaker following his efforts to pass the $14 billion aid package for Israel in November, according to a separate analysis of the FEC. Johnson, a hitherto unknown backbencher and acknowledged Christian nationalist, was appointed as the speaker after a far-right faction of Republican lawmakers ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, claiming he had been too soft on U.S. President Joe Biden over the U.S. fiscal budget, as well as other issues disputed between the Republican and Democratic parties’ Congressional lawmakers. (Related: House Speaker Johnson to introduce 4 separate bills for foreign aid, sending nearly $90 billion to Ukraine and Israel.)

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A previous report also indicated that AIPAC’s political action committee (PAC) also gave a total of $104,000 to Johnson last year, with the majority of payments coming since the start of the Gaza war and after Johnson was elected speaker of the house in late October. That’s more than four times the roughly $25,000 the group donated to his last congressional campaign, when it was also his top donor, as the Intercept reported.

AIPAC is known as a major powerbroker on Capitol Hill, where it gives money to lawmakers from both major political parties to preserve or enhance pro-Israel policies, the news outlet further reported. In recent years, the group has become a more partisan actor, training its sights on Democratic critics of Israel. It has recruited primary challengers to progressive members of Congress and launched a super PAC, the United Democracy Project, through which it has spent millions of dollars to help defeat Democratic candidates who express concern or support for the people of Palestine in any way. Analysts believe the fact that AIPAC feels the need to donate large sums to Johnson to push pro-Israeli policies is a significant shift.

Johnson threatens intervention should anti-Israel campus protests continue

Now, loyally playing the “defender’s role” for the state of Israel, Johnson claimed that the rebel group Hamas supports the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protests at colleges and universities across America. He also threatened congressional intervention, including pulling federal funding from the institutions, if the protests continue. “The things that have happened at the hands of Hamas are horrific and yet these protestors are out there waving flags for the very people who committed those crimes. This is not who we are in America,” Johnson said in a post on X on Thursday morning. ABC News has not documented any cases of protesters waving Hamas flags, as Johnson suggested.

Citing a statement that Hamas issued Wednesday, Johnson said Hamas “backed” the protests at Columbia specifically, which began April 17. Johnson added in a separate post on X that “taxpayer dollars should not be going to institutions that allow this chaos.”

The speaker’s comments came a day after he visited Columbia University, where he met with Jewish students and joined his New York House Republican colleagues in calling for the school’s president, Minouche Shafik, to resign if she can’t bring order to the protests. In a speech, during which boos and shouts from protesters often overpowered the speaker’s words, Johnson considered the need to send the National Guard to intervene. Student protests at Columbia and other schools have primarily denounced Israeli military action in Gaza and expressed support for Palestinian civilians, rather than expressing support for Hamas. School administrators and officials have said the protests on their campuses have been largely peaceful.

Meanwhile, Hamas spokesperson Izzat Al-Risheq blamed Biden for “violating the individual rights and the right to expression through arresting university students and faculty members for their rejection of the genocide to which our Palestinian people are being subjected in the Gaza Strip at the hands of the neo-Nazi Zionists in the statement issued by the Iran-backed political and military movement. “Today’s students are the leaders of the future, and their suppression today means an expensive electoral bill that the Biden administration will pay sooner or later,” Al-Risheq noted.

In response to Hamas’ statement, White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates said that “Hamas perpetrated the deadliest massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust, which makes them the least credible voice that exists on this subject.” “Hamas’ disapproval, after their acts of ‘unadulterated evil,’ which they’ve pledged to repeat ‘again and again,’ is a testament to Biden’s moral clarity. Biden has stood against Antisemitism his entire life. And he will never stop,” Bates said.

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Sources for this article include:.

PressTV.ir

TheIntercept.com

ABCNews.go.com