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Dave Sanders for The New York Times
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As a key witness testified inside the Manhattan criminal courthouse on Tuesday morning, an increasingly familiar scene unfolded outside, as another in a parade of well-known visitors — this time Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House — stepped up to a microphone.
“This is a man who is clearly on a mission for personal revenge,” Mr. Johnson said, attacking the witness on the stand, Michael D. Cohen, the former fixer to Donald J. Trump. “He is someone who has a history of perjury. No one should believe a word he says in there.”
It was striking to watch the speaker of the House, second in line to the presidency in a crisis, stooping to overheated language more familiar at MAGA rallies, call a trial in an American court — and by extension, the judicial system itself — a “sham” and political theater.