On January 23rd, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson said that a reliable source had informed him that a "secret society" was set up within the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice shortly after Donald Trump was elected president.
Speaking to Bret Baier of Fox News, the Wisconsin Republican complained of "corruption at the highest levels of the FBI." Johnson then argued the claims by two Republican lawmakers that emails from two FBI agents suggested there was a "secret society" of staffers within the Department of Justice and the FBI working against Trump. “We have an informant talking about a group holding secret meetings off-site,” Johnson said. "There's so much smoke here, there's so much suspicion."
“Boy, stop there," the Fox News host responded. "A secret society? Secret meetings off-site of the Justice Department? And you have an informant saying that?" "Yes," said Johnson, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Then, when asked to elaborate, Johnson stated, "We have to dig into it. This is not a distraction. Again, this is bias, potentially corruption, at the highest levels of the FBI.”
Johnson's remarks were immediately dismissed by liberals on social media, many of whom suggested that the second-term Senator was peddling a conspiracy theory. "Didn't figure Johnson for an Alex Jones type," tweeted Jon Favreau, a speechwriter for former-president Barack Obama, referring to the American radio host and conspiracy theorist.
Many conservatives, however, were touting his comments as further proof of the anti-Trump bias in the FBI. "In stunning admission, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) reveals an informant is briefing Congress on 'offsite' meetings by 'Secret society,'" tweeted Josh Caplan, a pro-Trump journalist and author.
On Monday, House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy and Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe told a TV audience that two FBI agents mentioned the existence of this anti-Trump society in text messages. "We learned today about information that in the immediate aftermath of his election, there may have been a 'secret society' of folks within the Department of Justice and the FBI … working against him," Ratcliffe told Fox News. "I'm not saying that actually happened, but when folks speak in those terms, they need to come forward to explain the context."
Congressional investigators are looking into the text messages between FBI members Peter Strzok and Lisa Page due to the fact that both worked on the investigations into Russian election meddling as well as the one into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while Secretary of State.
It was then revealed around a week later that Senator Johnson appeared to be walking back some of his earlier statements, based on his comments to given to a CNN reporter. Johnson told the reporter that he did not know what the informant and the text messages on the "secret society" exactly meant. He then went on to say that the messages could be “just a joke.”