“No lawful ability”: Experts pour cold water on Trump and Johnson’s s…

Former President Donald Trump stopped in Washington, D.C., Thursday to rally Republican lawmakers behind his 2024 candidacy and look ahead to the 2025 legislative agenda. But before his first visit to Capitol Hill since his Jan. 6, 2021, remarks on the Ellipse and the subsequent Capitol riot, Trump roused the highest-ranking Republican in Congress with an audacious demand.

In a phone call to House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., in the days after his felony conviction in New York, the former president began to roll out a campaign to wield the powers of Congress against the Democrats he charges with “weaponizing” the justice system against him, Politico reports.

“We have to overturn this,” Trump told Johnson during the call, characterized by Trump’s lingering anger over his conviction and frequent F-bombs, according to sources who have heard accounts of the exchange from the speaker. 

Trump’s reported aim to “enlist House…