First, he defied an order to not disclose the existence of a subpoena from Mississippi’s attorney general. Now conservative journalist Charles C. Johnson says he’s defying the subpoena itself.
Johnson, who’s inserted himself in the middle of the conflict over the contentious Mississippi Senate runoff since he reported on widely disputed vote-buying allegations in July, said in a series of tweets on Monday that he’s “defied an illegal subpoena” that was handed down by Jim Hood, the state’s Democratic attorney general.
Today I have defied an illegal subpoena issued by AG Jim Hood for committing journalism in California by exposing voter fraud in #mssen.
— Charles C. Johnson (@ChuckCJohnson) September 22, 2014
The political persecution by MS AG Jim Hood of a California journalist & a rival campaign is disgusting. I will never be a party to it.
— Charles C. Johnson (@ChuckCJohnson) September 22, 2014
If MS AG Jim Hood wants to find me he can find me in California where I do all my journalism.
— Charles C. Johnson (@ChuckCJohnson) September 22, 2014
Stenographers for power in Mississippi may well criticize me for refusing to appear in a kangaroo court but you & I know the truth.
— Charles C. Johnson (@ChuckCJohnson) September 22, 2014
Hood’s office did not immediately respond to TPM’s request for comment.
The subpoena, which was issued last month, ordered Johnson to appear before a grand jury at the Lauderdale County, Miss. Circuit Court on Monday over the “payment of an interview to Stevie Fielder,” the source who originally claimed that Sen. Thad Cochran’s (R-MS) campaign bribed black voters.
Johnson originally tweeted a photo of the subpoena before quickly deleting it on the advice of his legal counsel.
“You are not to disclose the existence of this subpoena. Any such disclosure could impede the investigation being conducted and thereby interfere with the enforcement of the law,” read the document, which can be viewed here.
Johnson has said from the beginning that he paid Fielder for the story, which ran on the website GotNews.com.
(Photo via Johnson’s Twitter account)
Pea-brained attention whore shrieks about “defying injustice”. Hope he’s got a good bail bondsman.
Charles C. Johnson already has gone down in history as one of the great constitutionalists, right up there with Justice Thomas, Charlton Heston and Nathan Bedford Forrest – willing to sacrifice himself on the alter of publicity for his website.
Really, he’s a lot like Jesus — and has anyone else noticed that like Jesus, he has a beard?
In teabagger land, paying someone to lie counts as journalism. Morons.
Any resemblance between Chucky and a journalist is merely coincidental and should be regarded as same.
Jesus would NEVER be a ginger. Even he has limits…