47. The Pope (Dan Johnson)

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Only murders in the building, season five.

The hit Hulu original is back.

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Ongiono senores.

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You're gonna save the day, like you always do, by being smart, sharp, and almost always find mistakes.

The Hulu Original series: Only Murders in the Building.

Premieres September 9th, streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers.

Terms apply.

New episodes Tuesdays.

This episode of Swindled contains descriptions of sexual assault and sexual misconduct.

Listener discretion is advised.

Of course, I've been the councilman here for 25 years, and I've seen this thing go from a small building to a larger building, and I think it's a lot better now.

I think we're getting a lot done in the south end with 3rd Street and Woodlawn going to be paved, and I think it'll all be a lot nicer in a very short time.

And I sure thank you all for coming today.

Meets Dan Johnson, a Democratic city councilman representing the 21st District of Louisville, Kentucky, a seat he held for over 25 years beginning in 1992.

Dan had grown up in that district, went to school there, started a family.

But the neighborhood was changing, like everything else.

Younger, first-time homebuyers were moving in, and they were losing patience with the district's long-time representative, even though Dan Johnson had already announced he would not be seeking re-election in 2018.

Truth be told, Dan was still flirting with the idea.

Because if left up to the district's longtime residents, Councilman Johnson could serve for as long as he pleased.

Dan Johnson had accomplished a lot during his tenure, and his ultra-personal approach to the job kept at least some of his neighbors happy.

Journalist Michael L.

Jones for Leo Weekly wrote: If you have a tree in your yard and the public works won't come out to help, Dan will show up with the chainsaw and do it himself.

Did the waste disposal miss your garbage can two weeks in a row?

Dan will pick it up and dump it for you.

Indeed, it is easy to see why Dan Johnson was so beloved by his constituents, even though over the decades Dan had faced his fair share of controversies.

For example, in the early 90s, while sitting on the Louisville Board of Aldermen, which preceded the city council as the municipal policy-making body, A criminal investigation had been launched against Dan Johnson for eavesdropping on a phone call between a political rival and an aide at City Hall.

Nothing came of it because a grand jury chose not to indict him.

Then, in 1997, according to the Louisville Courier Journal, because of Dan Johnson, the city was forced to back out of a contract with a consultant on a new arena project.

It was discovered that Dan and a colleague had accepted tickets to the World Series from said consultant during the bidding process.

Dan Johnson faced no consequences for his actions.

15 years later, in 2012, Louisville Councilman David Yates went public with reports that Councilman Dan Johnson, who was also a real estate agent, had tried to purchase the historic Colonial Gardens property in Kenwood Hill.

This was a problem because the city of Louisville had just spent $14,000 on an economic viability study of the corridor in which the property was located.

Redevelopment meant high profitability.

Nobody knew that better than the members of the legislative body on which Dan Johnson sat.

Although he never confirmed nor denied his attempt at buying property with his insider knowledge, Dan Johnson did have this to say to radio station WFPL, quote,

A real estate offer is nothing unless it is written.

And I have never made a real estate offer.

I've never made any sort of offer whatsoever.

And if I did, it's my business, and I had the right to.

And I don't have to tell you about it.

Two years later, August 2014, Dan Johnson's name was back in the local newspapers and not for good reasons.

This time Dan was being sued by a local businessman and a jewelry company for writing almost $11,000 in bad checks.

It was also reported that additional checks that Johnson had written to reimburse the city of Louisville for the personal use of his city-issued cell phone had bounced.

Dan settled the lawsuits out of court and later counter-sued the businessman, and he said he had already tried to reimburse the city for his cell phone, but quote, I I have been really pretty poor.

At the time, voters in Dan Johnson's district voiced concern about the councilman's financial troubles and began to wonder how his inability to handle his own money might interfere with his handling of taxpayer funds.

To ease concerns, Johnson requested that his government office be audited.

He wrote a personal letter to the council president expressing utmost confidence, quote, My constituents know me and largely know that I conduct my office with integrity.

However, I want there to be be no doubt in the minds of the few.

That audit would find that Dan Johnson had his own street repaved earlier that year before it met the threshold for repairs.

And again, there were no consequences that I could find.

Which might explain why Dan Johnson's actions eventually became too brazen to be ignored.

In early June 2017, Leadership of the Louisville City Council was alerted by Councilwoman Jessica Green that Dan Johnson had groped her butt during a group photo at a community event at a park.

In the letter she wrote detailing the incident, Councilwoman Green said that after it happened, Johnson leaned down and whispered into her ear, laughing, you know that was an accident, right?

Dan Johnson responded to the accusations via the Courier Journal, quote, I believe it is totally ridiculous.

It was completely not on purpose.

It was just an accident.

He also posted a sarcastic tweet referencing the incident.

It said, Truth is, she touched me first when she nestled against my left side.

I was harassed too.

It was an accident.

And they were crowding in on me.

How could that be

looked at as anything but an accident?

Councilwoman Green issued a statement insisting that she knew the difference between accidental and intentional touching, and she insisted that what Dan Johnson did to her was no accident.

She wrote, This behavior, especially by an elected official, is disgusting and troubling, and is the primary reason so many who have suffered from sexual harassment stay silent, the fear of retribution.

She added, It is commonplace for perpetrators to seek to shift the blame to their accusers and to try and convince others and themselves that the victim somehow deserved what occurred to him or her.

The blatant lie about the events in question is nothing more than a sad attempt to divert attention from the outrageous and inappropriate behavior that occurred.

Jessica Green described Johnson's deflection as one of the oldest tricks in the book.

Not to mention, Councilwoman Green could recognize misconduct from a public official when she saw it.

Her predecessor had resigned and vacated the council seat she currently occupied due to misuse of taxpayer money.

Coincidentally, Jessica Green's predecessor just so happened to be her very own mother, Judy Green.

I'm not planning on resigning.

That was Judy Green around 9:30 Thursday night.

This was Judy Greene just 16 hours later.

I resize.

A lot can happen in 16 hours.

When the news of Dan Johnson's alleged sexual misconduct spread through the hallways of City Hall, many of his longtime colleagues were surprised and horrified to hear the news.

But there was one woman in particular who was not.

Erin Henson.

She worked as a legislative aide for Dan Johnson's colleague, Councilwoman Angela Leet.

After work one evening in the fall of 2016, Erin was walking to her car in the parking lot outside of City Hall when she heard grunting noises coming from behind her.

She said when she turned around, she saw Councilman Dan Johnson standing there with his pants around his ankles, exposing his bare ass.

Erin told the Courier Journal that she ran to her car and got in before Johnson could dress himself.

The next time she looked up, Dan was walking within feet of her vehicle and his pants dropped again.

I've had a thin waist and a full waist, and it depends on where I was at that time, I suppose, as to what might have happened, but I sure don't remember remember it.

Aaron Henson reported that incident the day it happened, but charges were never pursued because, according to Council President David Yates, quote, based on the description of events, it appeared to be an accident, and thus neither Councilwoman Leet nor Mrs.

Henson sought to memorialize the incident.

Accidental Dan strikes again.

His pants had fallen down twice, and now he was groping women, and he only remembers half of it.

Geez, getting old is scary.

After the most recent incident involving Councilwoman Green, Aaron Henson went public with what happened to her a year earlier.

Also, at the same time, it became public knowledge that Dan Johnson had been banned from attending events held by the Louisville Chamber of Commerce because he was drunkenly propositioning staffers during a trip to Austin, Texas.

It seems a pattern had emerged.

This is Councilwoman Jessica Green.

We believe that there has been a pattern of behavior, a pattern of increasingly an escalating behavior that gives us great concern about his ability to continue to serve with us.

There were also concerns about the company that Dan Johnson was keeping.

This is Brian Matthews.

He writes notes, takes pictures, and smiles for the camera as Councilman Dan Johnson's legislative assistant.

But six months ago, Matthews was out of a job.

I don't want to sound bitter, but I'm very angry with what happened here.

Steve Gayhafer's organization, The Kling Center, feeds impoverished seniors in old Louisville.

Gayhafer says while Matthews was the group's executive director, he repeatedly used the N-word, and his management put the center in financial trouble.

So in January, the board fired Matthews.

His last words to me was,

I guess you let the ghetto win.

But Brian Matthews wasn't out of a job for long, and his new boss had no problem going to bat for him.

Do you know that he has used the N-word in his previous job?

He never did, and that's been a complete lie, sir.

Which is no surprise.

Dan Johnson was no stranger to casual racism.

According to the Courier Journal, just a few years earlier, he had sought to ban additional Vietnamese immigrants from moving into his district.

Councilman Dan Johnson did eventually apologize for his recent behavior on June 14th, and he agreed to go to counseling.

He later said in a radio interview that his actions might stem from a brain injury he suffered over 40 years ago, which might also explain why he couldn't remember what happened, I'm sure.

But Dan Johnson's contrite tone began to change when he hired attorney Thomas A.

McAdam III to represent him in all matters related to the counsel's investigation of his alleged sexual misconduct.

The McAdam hire alone made it clear that Dan Johnson planned to put up a fight.

because Thomas McAdam was a self-described asshole.

He was well known in Louisville for being a proud misogynist, and he had no problem admitting it in print.

McAdam told the Courier Journal, quote, My prejudice against women lawyers is widely known.

A lot of people don't take women lawyers seriously because they act like little girls.

On the other hand, McAdam did concede that the fair sex made for, quote, damn good judges.

He said, some of them are drop-dead gorgeous.

They're courteous, respectful.

My little heart goes pitter-patter when I walk into court.

At the time, and still to this day, Thomas McAdam was prototypical paranoid boomer Facebook timeline was full of sexist memes, right-wing propaganda, and white fragility.

You know the type.

Women are stupid.

Obama's from Kenya.

All lives matter.

He'd also posted a picture of Colin Kaepernick and posed a question to his digital audience asking why people who are biracial often identify as being black.

to which McAdam provided his own answer, quote, because there is no benefit to being white, no privilege.

Thomas McAdam made that post after representing Confederate sympathizers in a lawsuit to keep their participation award statues.

And of course, he failed to see the irony.

On the surface, Dan Johnson and Thomas McAdam were an odd pairing, considering Johnson was a lifelong Democrat and McAdam was very obviously a Kentucky Republican.

But Councilwoman Jessica Green was a lawyer.

She was black.

And perhaps more importantly, she was a woman.

A woman who had the audacity to open her mouth in a way that didn't turn them on.

See there, we are not so divided after all.

When it comes to silencing a woman, the two parties have no problem meeting in the middle.

This is Dan Johnson's attorney, Thomas McAdam III, discussing the Louisville Counsel's investigation involving his new client.

Have you ever had an anonymous complaint filed against you?

I think you beat your wife.

I'm going to make a complaint.

Okay?

How are you going to defend against that?

Have you stopped meeting your wife?

That is a lynching.

A lynching, lynching, a lynching, by definition, is extrajudicial punishment.

Somebody is found guilty of a crime and punished without any judicial process.

That's what a lynching is.

This is a political lynching.

This is a mob.

Are you all proud of being members of the mob?

I can't believe it.

I can't believe that any sensible person would believe that this is fair and just.

On November 1st, 2017, a subgroup of the Louisville City Council, which included four Republicans and nine Democrats, voted in favor of a plea-do that censured Dan Johnson, but allowed him to keep his seat until the end of his term.

As part of the agreement, Johnson had to admit that there was enough evidence of his sexual misconduct to warrant his removal.

and he had to agree to abide by certain restrictions, such as not being inside of City Hall 20 minutes before or after a scheduled meeting.

Dan Johnson was also no longer allowed to attend ceremonial functions with the other council members, except for those that took place in his own district.

And finally, he agreed not to seek re-election in 2018.

This compromise enraged the public and the members of the city council who would never feel safe at work.

This is Councilwoman Jessica Green and Councilwoman Angela Leet, respectively.

How much more has to happen in order for us to take this man's behavior seriously?

It is so disappointing to me that perhaps this decision was based on friendships, race, gender.

I don't know.

But today I am embarrassed to be a member of this council.

You have silenced me.

You have stripped me of my humanity.

And that is reprehensible.

Victims did lose their voice today.

They will not be heard.

Their opportunity was taken away.

And reprehensible is just the beginning of the word.

It's disgusting what has happened here.

It's an affront to all women who are in the Me Too position.

And there are many of us.

It's been happening for decades.

And we're going to perpetuate it here in City Hall.

Even though Dan Johnson was the kind of guy that got off easy in every sense of the phrase, he was also the kind of person that couldn't stay out of his own way.

After he was essentially let off the hook, Dan Johnson took a victory lap.

In an interview with television station WDRB, he said, quote, I still say I did nothing wrong, but actually some of those incidents happened just like they say they did.

So if that's the case, I guess I did something wrong, but I didn't do it.

In addition to the nonsensical sewage that was coming out of his mouth, Dan Johnson had also immediately violated the restrictions he had agreed to in the plea deal.

Several witnesses complained that they saw him inside of City Hall 28 minutes after the removal trial adjourned.

Johnson and his lawyer defended his lingering presence by saying he was waiting on his wife to pick him up and it was raining outside, even though video evidence would later prove the latter to be untrue.

On November 17th, 2017, 16 days after accepting the deal to keep his seat, Dan Johnson was removed from the Louisville City Council.

A panel in Louisville has decided to kick out City Councilman Dan Johnson for breaking his controversial sexual harassment deal.

Johnson agreed to those terms of the deal to avoid being removed earlier this month.

Now, there were calls for him to resign over the summer after a councilwoman accused him of groping her as they posed for a photo, and an assistant claimed that he sexually assaulted her.

We also feel very confident that we have sent a strong statement to all the women and everyone, not just in Louisville, but in in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and across the nation, that we absolutely will not tolerate sexual harassment in the workplace and we will not tolerate a hostile work environment.

So we feel confident and we're convicted in the decision that we made today.

The council had 30 days to fill Dan Johnson's recent vacancy.

The chosen one would hold the seat for the remainder of Dan Johnson's term.

And the person who was selected by the other council members to take over was quite the inspirational story.

story.

My plan is straightforward.

One, invest in our kids.

Two, attract quality new businesses to District 21.

Three, revitalize and instill pride in our neighborhoods.

Vitalis Lanshima was born in Nigeria.

He moved to America in 2002.

He had no money.

He had no friends.

He didn't even have arms.

I'm serious.

When Vitalis was 12 years old, he grabbed a high voltage wire with both hands.

His His arms were amputated at the elbows.

But Vitalis still had legs, and he used them to become a world-class athlete.

He set three world track records at the 2000 Paralympic Games, and now Vitalis Nenshima had become the first foreign-born member of the Louisville Metro Council.

Even without arms, this seemed like a man that could keep his pants up.

And to top off his list of impressive accomplishments, Vitalis was also a special education teacher at a middle school.

Well, at least he had been, until one day he tossed the desk across the room and wrestled with a student in class.

Again, arms.

Who needs them?

Vitalis Lanshima was up for the challenge.

Until he wasn't.

In fact, he basically just disappeared.

Vitalis missed 22 council and committee meetings during the fall of 2018.

He wasn't returning phone calls or answering emails.

Turns out Vitalis Lanshima had returned to Nigeria where he was currently running for office while still collecting a $48,000 salary from the city of Louisville.

It was obvious that Vitalis had lost interest in Kentucky politics after losing the primary earlier that summer, which is hard to believe because there was so much happening in Kentucky politics to hold one's interest.

On the same day that Louisville Councilman Dan Johnson had admitted to behavior unbecoming of an elected official, or anyone for that matter, The Courier Journal reported that Jeff Hoover, the Republican House Speaker for Kentucky's state government, reached a confidential settlement with a woman on his legislation staff over sexual harassment allegations.

Since March 2016, Hoover and the unnamed woman had exchanged sexually explicit text messages and photos.

The woman said she only engaged with Hoover in that nature because another legislative staffer told her that she needed to keep him happy in order to advance her career.

Quite the hostile work environment.

I did make mistakes

in that I engaged in inappropriate text messages.

I engaged in banter that was consensual.

Today, I ask the people of the Commonwealth to forgive me for my actions.

I am truly sorry, and I ask you for your forgiveness.

I'm announcing my resignation.

As Speaker of the House,

Jeff Hoover resigned from his position as Speaker of the House, but refused to give up his state Senate seat, even after Republican Governor Matt Bevin called for all parties involved, including three other House Republicans, as well as Hoover's chief of staff, to resign.

Governor Bevin called the scandal a, quote, cancer in our legislative body, and he said that there had been a compromise in integrity, moral authority, and judgment, quote, I expect this party to condemn this.

I expect everyone in Kentucky to condemn this, frankly.

But not everyone in Kentucky did.

In fact, a Kentucky state representative spoke to the media and said that he was a supporter of Jeff Hoover and that he believed his fellow statesmen would survive the scandal.

That Kentucky state representative was named Dan Johnson.

No, it wasn't the same Dan Johnson who was just ousted from the Louisville City Council for sexual misconduct.

It was a different Dan Johnson, who, less than a month later, would be at the center of a sexual misconduct case of his own.

The dubious and predatory past of a preacher-turned politician comes back to haunt him on this episode of Swindled.

They bribed government officials to find accounting for clear violations of the A state law and clearly unethical

taxpayer dollars that were wasted.

Now we have the books and records in the high public.

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This is a great day.

It's a great day because there's men and women here,

people that are family of the United States of America.

We're citizens, we're people, but we are connected.

Today is not just a demonstration.

It's not just a gathering or an assembly of a mass of people.

Today is a spiritual day.

And I know with all of my heart that everything that's happened in the United States of America from the very beginning happened because of men and women that loved God,

believed in God,

from the settlements of this land before there was a United States of America over 400 years ago

in Jamestown when those first settlers came here.

No matter what history tries to make it now, when people try to rewrite it, those that came to settle this country came here

because of God.

And they came here to preach Jesus Christ.

And that's the fact.

I am Bishop Dan Johnson, pastor, founder of Heart of Fire Church, Heart of Fire Ministries.

I've got a lot of friends here today.

I've got Americans here today.

Meet Dan Johnson, the pastor and founder of Heart of Fire Church and Ministries, which was located in the Fern Creek neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky.

Heart of Fire was not your typical church.

The congregation did not show up in their Sundays' best or shiny shoes.

They wore bandanas and beards, leathers and boots, an outfit that sends a whole different message in other parts of the country.

But in Kentucky, it meant you were a badass biker dude.

An outlaw.

A loner that answers to no one but himself.

A rebel with a distaste for authority.

A wanderer on the open road with nothing left behind but the setting sun.

But who are we kidding?

In reality, it was most likely weak-ended warriors in the throes of a midlife crisis, cosplaying sons of anarchy.

That theory is only supported by the fact that they were still attending church.

Not exactly what I would call rebellious, but no judgment.

Not from me nor from Heart of Fire.

The greeting on the church's website read, quote, Guns are welcome.

Tattoos and Harleys are recommended, but not required.

Just bring your Bible and an open mind.

So saith the Lord.

Heavenly Father, we come before you.

We ask forgiveness.

We seek your direction and guidance.

We know your word says woe to those who call evil good,

but that's exactly what we've done.

We've lost our spiritual equilibrium.

We've inverted our values.

We've ridiculed the absolute truth of your word and called it moral pluralism.

We have worshipped other gods and called it multiculturalism.

We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle.

We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.

We have neglected the needy and we called it self-provision.

We have rewarded laziness and we've called it welfare.

We have killed the unborn and we called it choice.

Heart of Fire was not your typical place of worship because Dan Johnson, or Danny Ray, was not your typical preacher.

He looked just like his flock of leather daddies, his large frame outfitted with sleeveless shirts to show off the ink on his arms and the firearms on his hip.

And thanks to alcohol, Dan's face was flushed with the same crimson hue that is worn by every bloated dollar DC wearing a fishing shirt or riding in a golf cart.

A normal guy, just like me and you, except for maybe the fact that Danny Ray referred to himself as the Pope.

Dan Johnson's style may have been unorthodox.

After all, one of his sermons did include a story about having sex with his wife on their honeymoon.

But the message was clear, non-traditional, but unabashedly conservative.

Why do you feel it's so important as a Christian to be armed?

I believe, you know, Jesus taught us to be armed, and it is important.

And you had an AK-47 there, I believe.

Yes, it's like one of my favorite

home defense, and it's also one of my favorite uh anti-mean government guns you know it's a gun that that works very dependable dependable the real reason for our second amendment rights is that we have a gun to keep a mean-spirited government off of us that if they go crazy you know we got to have something to be crazier with so that's what it's what we're

doesn't that make you feel safer knowing that there exists a legion of armed patriots ready and willing to fend off a tyrannical army of unmanned drones and tanks with the guns they bought at walmart Sure, we might lose a school kid or two or dozens every now and then, but it's necessary for us to maintain our standing guerrilla army of hillbillies and their delusions of rapture.

Who else is going to keep the black kids from jogging through your neighborhood?

My name is Sarah Johnson.

I have an AK-47 to keep the ugly boys away.

My name is Judy Johnson.

I've got a Taurus.45 to protect my household and my family when I'm out of the household.

My name is Daniel Johnson.

I have a 40 caliber Smith in Weston and I keep it to keep the government at bay.

It takes a brave soul to accept such a responsibility, but if anyone was up for it, it was the Pope, Dan Johnson.

Those were three of his five children you just heard, by the way, showing off their guns in a video shot by guns.com.

Dan Johnson kept his family prepared because he had already seen it all.

He'd already seen the best and the worst the world had to offer.

In 1992, Dan Johnson was part of the peacekeeping force in Los Angeles during the Rodney King riots.

Setting those up the day before before the Rodney King riots happened, that's something God did just by destiny.

He had been advising presidents for over 20 years.

I served as a chaplain to the White House under Presidents H.W.

Bush, under William Jefferson Clinton, and also under George W.

Bush, chaplain to the White House.

Dan had also served as an ambassador with the United Nations for several years.

I served as an ambassador with the UN for several years, the ambassador of peace.

And he was in New York City on September 11th, 2001, when the Twin Towers were destroyed.

The bishop, who always did his best to avoid funerals, quickly found himself doing nothing but running the Ground Zero morgue.

A beautiful day that turned into something that no horror film or movie could ever produce.

Call it fate.

Call it destiny.

divine intervention.

Whatever it was, Dan Johnson was checking into the New Yorker hotel just hours before the the terrorist attack.

He said he had watched the second plane crash from his window.

So Dan raced to Ground Zero, which was about a mile away, and sprung into action.

All of a sudden, I realized that everyone was looking for leadership.

And they asked, had I ever set up a morgue before?

And of course, my answer was no.

But would I do it?

And the answer was yes.

Dan Johnson says he spent over two weeks at the scene of the attacks.

giving last rites and offering prayers to every body pulled from the rubble.

It was an experience that he said said would haunt him forever.

I was the first responder to 9-11.

I watched the second plane hit in New York City.

I was the minister and pastor that did last rites and blessings for all of those that came out of the towers.

I live 9-11 every day of my life.

Dan Johnson lived 9-11 every day of his life.

Never forget.

And in the following years, he began to worry about the future of his country.

Obama had been president for eight eight long years and it was looking like Hillary Clinton was next up to bat.

Things were headed in the wrong direction in Dan's opinion.

Gays were getting married.

Mexicans were taking over.

Guns were on the verge of extinction.

Sharia law was right around the corner.

Dan Johnson thought it was about time someone came along that represented him.

Someone that would represent real Americans instead of these welfare queens, snowflakes, and Muslims.

We're in a country right now that's not loved by a whole world.

We're in a country today that's that's hated by a lot of nations.

But I will tell you what I do know and what you know and what all those countries know.

That when there's ever been a need, our country has been there because we do believe in God.

America is great and it needs to be restored to its greatness.

By 2016, Dan Johnson, at 56 years old, like many others his age, wanted America restored to its greatness for the sake of his children and his children's children.

Dan Johnson dreamed of an America where his kind, white, God-fearing country folk, would no longer be oppressed for being oppressive.

An America where the line between church and state was blurry and political correctness was a distant memory.

An America where Dan Johnson could fly his Confederate flag freely, even though that's one of the most anti-American things you can do.

Now, if only there were some kind of sea-list reality television game show host host that could make it come true.

Some kind of obvious con man with a history of bankruptcies and failed casinos who was leveraged to the gills with foreign debt and narcissism so that he or she could be propped up by the corrupt, greedy, and deceitfully patriotic and pious to scare half-wits into voting against their own self-interest in order to make America great again.

Maybe that person's kids could help out too.

But what were the chances of that happening?

It's never been like this to me before.

Come on now.

But all of a sudden, I see a flag flying, tears roll on my face

because we're so close to losing this freedom.

We are so close to losing this country.

And the American public, our citizens, better realize we are one vote away from a president of either winning this country back or losing it.

You better know that.

Donald Trump, we need you.

I'll be damned.

The Trump train was rolling, and Dan Johnson jumped on board.

He had never been so politically motivated, even though politicking from the pulpit is the clear violation of a church's tax exemption, or it used to be, back when those kinds of things were enforced.

In fact, the Pope was so motivated that he decided to throw his own hat into the ring for Bullock County's 49th district seat.

in the Kentucky House of Representatives, after the woman who won the Republican primary unopposed was disqualified for filling out her candidacy paperwork incorrectly.

Since it was already so late into the election cycle, the GOP was left with no other choice.

Dan Johnson was their guy.

And Linda Belcher, the popular Democratic incumbent, was his opponent.

Let the games begin.

I get this question a lot from

friends,

family, those in the 49th district.

Why I'm running for this office?

And my reason is really clear.

Linda Belcher has done a horrible job as a state representative and she's done so many things that are bad.

I don't even know where to start.

November the 8th, guess what?

This is a Donald Trump and Dan Johnson against the likes of criminal, criminal Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and lying Linda Liu.

Let's defeat them.

Let's show them that the good old boys matter.

Heard from Ted Nugent today.

We have his endorsement.

I am an infidel because I believe in Jesus Christ.

I am an infidel because I still love this country.

And by the way, I believe the Constitution needs to stay intact.

She has killed over 80,000 babies in the last 20 years.

She's been in office 12.

She's lobbied for killing babies for 20 years.

I had someone tell me the other night the reason her feet are red, her shoes are red, is all the blood of all those babies.

She's killed over 80,000 babies in just Kentucky.

Do you know that our truck the other night was ambushed, roadblocked, threats on my friend's life?

But he outgunned them.

The police were called.

They came to my house.

They came to our church.

They're holding signs up at our church.

They're doing all kinds of crazy, threatening my life, threatening my children, my grandbaby's life.

We have had death threats.

We have had bomb threats on our church.

And you know what?

They have sent Chicago thugs after me.

Chicago thugs thugs after me.

Linda Lou Belcher was a 67-year-old retired school teacher and principal.

She had taken over her late husband's seat in the Kentucky House of Representatives in 2008 after he had been killed in a car accident.

During her first three terms, even as a Democrat, Linda Belcher had been, in every sense of the word, a moderate.

She had a concealed carry permit and was even endorsed by the NRA.

She liked to craft.

She liked to garden.

I am a Bullock accountant and I'm going to work for all Bull Accountants.

But according to Dan Johnson, Linda Luke Belcher was a Clinton-loving baby killing machine with Chicago thugs at her disposal.

She must be stopped.

So Dan Johnson took to Facebook to unload on Belcher and every other politician or group that threatened his simplistic worldview.

He attacked everyone from, quote, the perverts who want to use our daughters' bathrooms to Muslims who had a problem with him saying Islam sucks, quote.

and if you Hajis have an issue with me saying this, PM me and I'll gladly give you my address.

You can come visit me where I promise I will kill you in my front yard.

Dan Johnson also shared Linda Belcher's address with his small base of supporters, who in the comments would often refer to her as a baby-killing bitch who only cares about Black Lives Matter hate groups.

And Linda Belcher never had a chance to defend herself against Dan Johnson's slanderous attacks because he didn't bother showing up to the one and only public debate.

Instead, Dan continued to campaign exclusively on Facebook, where he promoted Islamophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, white pride, and southern succession.

Dan Johnson also shared memes that depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as cartoon apes.

Of course, when criticized, Dan Johnson played the victim.

He whined about unfair attacks from the media, censorship, and violations of free speech.

No matter how many times he was reminded that the government had not and would not be arresting him for speaking his mind.

Selective interpretations of the Constitution and the Bible.

G-O-P-M-O.

I want to say this, first off,

the things that were on the Facebook page, Facebook is entertainment and it is to get people's attention.

And I know exactly the post you're talking about.

And I'm going to tell you right now, the politicians of Kentucky,

a lot of those politicians that were sent there to do a change, to do a great job and to

help Kentucky, have made a monkey out of the state.

They made a monkey out of Kentucky.

There's a lot of politicians that have, I think, made a monkey out of the American people.

And historically, and I have those pictures, by the way, if you looked on Facebook, there's other presidents and other posts that were made like that.

And I have copies of those for you if you'd like them.

Even the Kentucky State Republican Party chair called Dan Johnson's Facebook posts the, quote, rankest sort of prejudice present in our society.

Both parties urged him to withdraw from the race, but Dan Johnson ignored them.

The outrage eventually died down.

And on Tuesday, November 8th, 2016, the Pope Danny Ray Johnson won the election against incumbent Linda Belcher by 156 votes.

Hallelujah.

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All my life I've loved to sing a song of praise and glory,

whether new or old, just so it told this wondrous story.

The year was 1977.

A 17-year-old Danny Ray Johnson said goodbye to his parents and his hometown of Bassrop, Louisiana.

He was hitting the road to perform with the McKeithins, a southern gospel-traveling musical group that was based in Nashville, Tennessee.

Danny Ray had known he was destined for greatness ever since he was seven years old, after a metallic projectile from a BB gun ricocheted into his eye and blinded him.

When Danny made a full recovery, both he and his family were convinced it was a miracle.

A Christian story.

All glory to God.

But after two years on the road, Danny was still searching for that big break.

So he moved back home in the meantime, got married, had a kid, got divorced three years later, and filed for bankruptcy.

This is not what Danny Ray Johnson had planned.

This is not what God had planned for Danny Ray Johnson.

Or maybe it was.

Peaks and valleys, you know.

One set of footprints in the sand.

The year is now 1985.

A 24-year-old Danny Ray Johnson, back on his feet, said goodbye to his parents and his hometown once again and moved to Bullock County, Kentucky, a working-class suburb located about 20 miles south of Louisville.

Most of the people there were white and moderately educated.

Danny Ray Johnson would fit right in.

Soon after his arrival, Danny landed a job at a local church.

where he spent his time making friends and spreading the gospel.

He was flying high like an angel, but additional challenges were waiting in the wings.

On the eve of his 25th birthday, October 15th, 1985, Dan Johnson and a group of church staffers went out for a night on the town.

Danny left his 1982 Cadillac coupe de ville in the church parking lot so that he could pick it up the next day when he was sober.

But when Dan Johnson returned for it in the morning, the car was missing.

So he called the police and reported the vehicle was stolen.

But what Danny Ray Johnson did not realize is that the police had already found his car the night before before and had already arrested the thieves.

They told Danny that just after midnight, a police officer on routine patrol spotted a 1982 Cadillac, just like the one he was describing, at a park near the river.

All the wheels and tires had been removed and it had been doused in gasoline.

When the officer approached the vehicle, he noticed a red van leaving the park at a high rate of speed.

The officer gave chase and when the van finally stopped, the driver and solo occupant, a man named Leonard Watkins, was arrested.

The wheels and keys to the Cadillac were found inside of his vehicle.

So Leonard Watkins began to talk.

He told the cops that a woman named Sharon Stubbins had set the whole thing up.

Sharon had fled from the scene on foot but was arrested later that night when she came back to check on Leonard.

She admitted that a man offered to pay her $200 to destroy the car so that man could collect the insurance proceeds.

That man apparently told Sharon that she could keep the wheels and tires as a bonus.

That man was Danny Ray Johnson.

When faced with the truth, Dan Johnson confessed his sins.

He told the police that he organized the destruction of his car because he still owed more than $10,000 on it and he was about to go broke.

Dan Johnson was arrested for a complicity to commit arson and for filing a false police report.

But the charges against Dan were dropped in 1987 after he completed a six-month diversion program.

Years later, Dan Johnson would claim that he he had no idea what happened to the car.

He said it had been vandalized.

Yeah, Dan Johnson says a lot of things, because Dan Johnson is a liar.

Fast forward to February 2017, good old boy Danny Ray was riding high on his horse after winning a seat in the Kentucky state legislature when a veteran journalist from the Louisville Public Media's Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting named R.G.

Dunlop received a short text message from a longtime source.

It read, quote, Strictly off the record, do you know about state rep Dan Johnson's past?

I hate hypocrites among public officials.

R.G.

Dunlop was not familiar with Dan Johnson's history, but he was about to be.

For the next seven months, Dunlop, along with reporter and producer Jacob Ryan, scoured more than 1,000 pages of public documents and conducted more than 100 interviews related to Dan Johnson's past.

It became the largest investigation in the history of the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, and what they found was disturbing.

Where do we even start?

How about the June 1991 letter posted to Dan Johnson's website that's written by a pastor in California named Dr.

David Fisher?

The letter recalled how Dan Johnson went on mission trips to South America where he pulled off one miracle after another.

In Venezuela, Dan reportedly put his fingers in the ears of a deaf man and fixed his hearing.

There was a man with a crooked leg, which Dan was able to instantly straighten and lengthen.

Dan Johnson also removed a growth from a man's face and helped the little boy breathe with nothing but the power of prayer.

Dr.

Fisher's letter also says that Dan Johnson approached the dead woman who was slumped over in her chair and commanded her back to life in front of a crowd of 7,000 Colombian people.

Pretty impressive stuff.

But when reporter R.G.

Dunlop contacted Dr.

Fisher 26 years after the letter was written, to verify the miracles, the pastor admitted in an email that he was not a first-hand witness and that he, quote, depended on later reports from pastors and other people in our large meetings for what may have occurred.

Unfortunately, Dr.

Fisher could not remember who those pastors and other people were.

However, there was someone who had witnessed acts of pure magic by Dan Johnson when he was in California in the early 90s, at least adjacently.

I was with him in San Diego when that happened, and it's not him that did it.

He prayed, and there was other people there praying.

He just happened on the scene.

That's happened a lot.

He's the kind of person he rushes into burning buildings.

Literally.

That's Rebecca Johnson, Dan's second wife, whom he married in 1987.

Okay, maybe the Pope's healing powers had been a bit exaggerated in the letter, but Rebecca was right.

Dan Johnson was the kind of person that would rush into a burning building.

And according to Dunlop and Ryan's investigation, Dan Johnson is the kind of person that would rush out of one, too.

A fire lit up the sky in southeastern Louisville on June 12, 2000.

Dan Johnson's Heart of Fire Church, Child Care, and Christian Academy had burned to the ground.

Investigators said it was definitely arson.

Gasoline had been poured down the hallway and ignited.

The back door of the church was unlocked.

A passing motorist reported seeing a white, late model Cadillac without its headlights on.

speeding away from the building a little after 12.30 a.m.

It was driven by a white, late model blonde white male, which, coincidentally, is the same description one would give of the owner of the church, who also drove a white late model Cadillac.

Dan Johnson was a suspect, but he denied responsibility.

He said it was probably the Ku Klux Klan, which he claimed the church had recently protested.

Besides, what motive could Dan Johnson possibly have for burning down his own church?

Besides the fact that when Hard of Fire caught on fire, the church was baptized in debt and practically bankrupt.

Even former church employees suspected that Johnson was behind it.

They had seen Hard of Fire's financial troubles with their own eyes, how Dan cut corners on food for the daycare, and how he would stiff contractors and get a secretary to lie about it.

The employees also noted that this was not the first time a piece of Dan Johnson's property had gone down in flames.

In 1998, Dan lit his own house on fire.

He had already built a new one on the land and he told his staff that it was cheaper to burn down the old one rather than to pay to have it removed.

Dan handed out hot dogs and marshmallows to make it look like a bonfire just in case the fire department showed up.

In the end, no one was ever charged with the hard of fire church burning in 2000 and Dan Johnson built a new building better than ever just 100 meters away.

He used insurance money and a $1.5 million loan from the federal government.

who had announced a few years earlier that it was implementing a $10 million loan guarantee program to help places of worship worship recover from a recent rash of arsons.

The program was intended to help African-American churches and synagogues who had been the main targets.

Yet Dan Johnson's Heart of Fire and its 97% white congregation received the third largest allocation.

Not that the Pope wouldn't make good use of it.

Next door to the chapel, Johnson had a building constructed that he named the Pope's House.

There were advertisements for beer on the door and disco balls, neon signs, and Confederate flags inside.

The space was mainly used for after-parties and gatherings.

It was more of a biker bar than anything.

There was even an apartment underneath just in case one of the guests consumed too much holy water and couldn't make it home.

The alcohol was flowing at the Pope's house.

Even the underaged were served, which is a surefire way to lose a liquor license, but that didn't matter to Dan Johnson.

because Heart of Fire did not have a liquor license, even though Heart of Fire had been selling alcohol for years.

And the local authorities knew about it.

Dan Johnson had been cited three times because of it.

Have you ever sighted Mr.

Johnson before?

Yes, I have.

And where did I correct?

Hard of Fire Church, 5101 Bardstown Road.

And is there a reason you decided not to arrest the defendant that night would just cite him?

Just officer discretion.

He was he was pleasant.

What was that Mr.

McAdam was saying about privilege earlier?

Anyway, at one of the hearings for the alcohol violations, Dan Johnson showed up wearing a black robe and a priest collar.

He said his organization did not need a liquor license because the beer was free, but they did accept donations.

And he said that the patrons of the Pope's house weren't drinking just to get drunk.

It was communion.

But that is not a bar.

It's a place where people get together in a community, have a fellowship, have whatever it is they have.

It's not a wide open thing for everyone.

It's people that are part of a community or a family.

And I know that

depending on what faith that you're in, you can go from something that's just a matter of an ounce to something that is about three ounces to, according to one of the larger churches in this community, is a whole glass of communion.

And there are repeat

drinks if you would like to partake.

And that's common.

It was also at one of these hearings where Dan Johnson claimed under oath that he had a doctorate in divinity from Kingsway University, a claim that journalists R.G.

Dunlop and Jacob Ryan were unable to confirm.

They called the school who could find no record of Dan Johnson receiving any honorary or earned degrees.

The more Dunlop and Ryan poked and prodded Dan Johnson's past, the more holes they were finding in the story.

In addition to the burnt car, destroyed church, alcohol violations, and phony degrees, the journalists spoke with people who were witness to the Los Angeles riots in 92, where Dan Johnson claimed to have set up safe zones.

Those people have no recollection of ever seeing the pastor.

Neither did the media.

There's no mention of Dan Johnson or his safe zones in any newspaper from that time period.

Kind of strange for someone that played such an instrumental role.

And remember how Danny Ray said he had served as a chaplain to the White House?

Chaplain to the White House.

Dunlop and Ryan confirmed that no such position exists.

And remember how Dan Johnson claimed to be an ambassador of peace for the United Nations?

Ambassador of Peace.

You guessed it.

No such thing.

According to Dunlop and Ryan, the UN does have something called a messenger of peace, but it's a title shared by the likes of George Clooney and Muhammad Ali.

Not a single redneck biker preacher to be found on that list, unless there's something I don't know about Yo-Yo Ma.

Even worse, the journalists were not able to confirm that Dan Johnson was in New York on 9-11.

Though to his credit, Dan does have a photo with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Then again, so does every white-collar criminal that's been arrested in the past four years, so that doesn't mean much.

In fact, the only proof that Dan Johnson was at Ground Zero is that he received workers' compensation benefits from the state of New York related to the rescue, recovery, and cleanup after 9-11.

According to the financial disclosures from Dan Johnson's 2016 campaign, those benefits were his only source of income.

That's right.

Dan Johnson had been living on the state of New York's dime for over 15 years for post-traumatic stress disorder that he almost certainly never received from 9-11.

Yet somehow he found his way inside of the benefit system of a state he had never lived in.

Some might call it an inside job.

Louisville Public Media was also able to confirm that Ted Nugent never held a campaign rally for Dan Johnson.

Nugent's representatives told the journalists that they had no record of the event.

Pretty sad when the guy who shit his pants to avoid the draft so that he could write songs about raping 13-year-old girls doesn't even want to be associated with you.

And that's a shame, because as you're about to find out, the two of them probably had a lot in common.

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that saved

a wretch

like me.

I once

was lost,

but now

I'm found.

I was blind,

but now

I see

when we

Miranda Richmond was just nine years old when she and her father began attending church services at Heart of Fire in 2004.

And over the years, Miranda had become extremely close to the Johnson family.

Dan Johnson was like a second father, and his daughter Sarah was one of Miranda's best friends.

But something happened on New Year's Eve, 2013, that would ruin Miranda Richmond's relationship with the Johnsons forever, though it was no fault of her own.

As the party at the Pope's house was winding down on December 31st, 2012, Miranda, at the time 17 years old, along with Sarah Johnson and Sarah's father Dan Johnson, retired to the living area below the building.

Miranda planned to stay the night there like she had a thousand times before.

Miranda Richmond wasn't drunk at the time, but some of the other kids there that night definitely were.

And so was Dan Johnson.

Miranda remembers helping him down the stairs.

He put his arm around her for balance and reached his hand under her shirt.

Miranda shrugged it off at the time.

He's intoxicated.

Maybe it was just an accident.

So once inside, after helping Dan into bed, Miranda curled up on one end of the couch in the living room with Sarah on the other.

Minutes later, Dan Johnson was back on his feet, standing in the kitchen with the phone to his ear.

Apparently, the party wasn't over.

Dan Johnson kissed the girls on the top of the head like a fatherly figure would.

and then he left the apartment to meet up with some friends at a bar while Miranda and Sarah fell asleep on the couch.

The next thing Miranda Richmond remembers is waking up at 3 or 4 in the morning with Dan Johnson rubbing her arm.

She recalls hearing his voice while still half asleep whispering things like, Hey, sweetie, and it's okay, as he put his hand up her shirt again and underneath her bra.

While she was frozen with fear, Miranda said Dan slid his hand into her pants, inside of her underwear, and penetrated her with his finger.

Miranda said she tried to push Dan Johnson away.

The 17-year-old told her pastor that he just needed to stop, just go to bed.

Dan responded by kissing her stomach and asking her if she liked it.

Miranda also remembers Dan trying to kiss her on the mouth.

She could feel the weight of his body and smell the booze on his breath.

Finally, Miranda Richmond convinced Dan Johnson to stop.

He got off of her, went inside the bedroom, shut the door, and fell asleep.

Just another crazy night at the Pope's house.

But Miranda stayed awake all night.

She told the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, quote, every little sound that I heard, I was terrified that it was his door opening up and he was coming back out.

She set the alarm on her phone for around seven or eight in the morning.

Miranda wanted to leave before Dan Johnson woke up.

After that night, Miranda Richmond never went back to the Heart of Fire Church.

In fact, she never saw Dan Johnson again.

But Dan did send Miranda a message on Facebook a week after the incident when he noticed that Miranda had not been present for the Sunday service.

The message read, quote, Sarah said I was mean to bow you and her by telling you all to go to bed.

I'm so sorry.

I don't remember.

I was told we all got drugged at TK's pub.

Anyway, so sorry if I sounded mean.

You know that you are one of my favorites.

Love you.

Sorry.

Miranda was repulsed.

She wrote back, what you did was beyond mean.

It was evil.

Drugged or not, I think you know what happened that night, and that's why you're sending this message.

I never thought something like that would happen to me, especially by someone like you.

I looked at you as a dad, and now I sincerely hope I don't see you again.

But I might try to maintain a relationship with your kids.

And there is no point in responding to this message either, because I don't want to talk about it ever again.

The only person Miranda told about her encounter with Dan Johnson was her boyfriend at the time.

She wanted to move on with her life, but the memories of that night were eating her alive.

Once a straight-aid student, Miranda began struggling in school.

Even when she did show up to class, her mind was a million miles away.

A few months went by before Miranda's mom noticed and questioned her daughter's behavior.

Miranda broke down and told her everything, and the two of them sat together and cried before going to the police.

The detectives who handled the case told Miranda Richmond that it would be easier with a confession.

They instructed her to send a message to Dan Johnson on Facebook and to call his phone to see if they could get him to incriminate himself.

Dan Johnson never took the bait.

However, Miranda's father, Cliff Richmond, who was close friends with Dan, was able to get in touch with him.

Dan repeated what he had told Miranda in the Facebook message about not remembering what happened because he had been drugged.

So see, what I got from her was she said that you came back and you were pretty messed up and

that you came up and started feeling on her and stuff while she was on the couch with your daughter.

On that double couch that she she said it was kind of L-shaped or something.

And she just said she couldn't believe that it baby drift.

I don't know one thing about that.

New something that happened to us at night without question, but

I don't know more than that.

And that was it.

The police never interviewed Dan Johnson about what happened on New Year's Eve.

No charges were ever filed.

And unbeknownst to Miranda Richmond, the case was closed by exception, which means the victim had withdrawn the complaint or refused to comply.

But neither of those things were true.

Miranda said she spent four months trying to move the case forward, but was met with nothing but dead ends and disinterest.

She was never even told the investigation had come to an end.

When journalists R.G.

Dunlop and Jacob Ryan received the case file in 2017, they could not believe what they were seeing.

Not only had Louisville Metro Police Detective Antoinette Leitz closed the case without Miranda's consent, the detective had also misclassified the crime at hand.

Instead of investigating Dan Johnson for sexual abuse in the first degree, which was a felony that carried a lengthy prison sentence with no statute of limitations, Detective Leich had classified what happened to Miranda as sexual abuse of the third degree, a misdemeanor, with a one-year statute of limitations that had expired years ago.

Since she was a minor at the time, Miranda Richmond's name had been redacted from the files, but R.G.

Dunlop was able to track her down.

Miranda told him that she had never wanted to stop pursuing justice, but had only become more frustrated with each institutional failure.

Miranda said she had contacted local TV news stations and even sent an email to Linda Belcher, Johnson's former political opponent, who referred her to someone else.

Miranda was willing to talk, but it seemed as if no one wanted to listen.

But now, more than four years after the incident, Miranda Richmond would finally have a chance to tell her story.

She agreed to go public with the accusations against Dan Johnson as part of Dunlop and Ryan's larger investigative report, a report in which Dan Johnson was given the opportunity to respond, but chose not to participate.

Dan referred to it as fake news and hung up the phone when the journalist requested an interview.

The Pope's Long Con was published on Monday, December 11, 2017.

It is a 10,000-word investigative report and podcast series published by R.G.

Dunlop and Jacob Ryan for Kentucky's Center for Investigative Reporting.

The report fact-checks Dan Johnson's lifetime of lies and exposes some of his dirtiest secrets, including the sexual assault of then-17-year-old Miranda Richmond.

The day after publication, state leaders for both political parties were calling for Dan Johnson's resignation.

He was the fifth Republican Kentucky state lawmaker accused of sexual misconduct in less than a year.

Tonight, we're getting reaction from voters in Bullock County about the sexual abuse controversy that threatens to take down one of their state representatives.

Barely now, one year into his job, Dan Johnson of Bullet County is under fire to step away from that state house position.

A now 21-year-old woman claims Johnson molested her when she was 17 years old.

The Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, along with Louisville Public Media, first broke this story.

Two days later, Dan Johnson held a press conference to address the accusations.

Speak out on some accusations,

and

we're a little early still right now so let's do this.

Oh come

let us adore

him.

Oh come let us.

When Dan and his choir of supporters finished singing the Pope dusted off an old excuse that we have all grown tired of hearing by now.

He reminded everybody that there is no such thing as a perfect person and that the media would find dirt on anybody if they dug through their past like they had dug through his.

Dan Johnson said the report about him was, quote, an assault on real people.

For 25 minutes, Dan Johnson stood in front of the cameras and microphones deflecting blame.

He declined to address specific events that were debunked in the story and announced that he would not resign from office.

As for the accusations by Miranda Richmond, Dan Johnson said that there was no truth to them whatsoever.

I'm very, very

disturbed over the

piece that was written from NPR.

This This allegation concerning

this lady, this young girl, absolutely has no merit.

There is no

anything that I've heard.

As a matter of fact, some of this I heard yesterday for the first time as I read this story.

But I will tell you this, that

I'm not standing here today to step down or to resign or do anything like that.

I don't want to blast this girl.

I have compassion for her.

I'm very sorrowful that she's in this dark place in her life.

What I will say is this, is that

my wife and my children are very close and

you know there was issues in that situation before

I guess any of these accusations ever came up and I don't want to get into details there but there was nothing to do with me or any sexual thing to do with me.

whatever you know happened after that I don't know why she would make that up.

I don't think in every case that women lie not at all.

I think that it is the season.

Last election it seemed to be racism.

This one it seems to be sexual

impropriety.

I don't know

if

this is what is going to continue on in American politics.

This is something that is totally false.

There's no reason why I would resign.

Dan Johnson was here to stay.

No matter what happened next, Dan Johnson wasn't going anywhere.

You can't live in fear, right?

Don't tread on me, motherfucker.

Accusations were just that, accusations.

They were invisible like a ghost or 5G frequencies or a virus.

Only a coward would run and hide.

There was no reason for Dan to be afraid of something he couldn't see, right?

The only thing invisible that you have to fear is God himself.

And Dan Johnson had dedicated his life to putting that fear of God into other people.

He was so good at it, and it paid well.

Put the right tone and cadence on your voice, and you'd be surprised how much money people are willing to give you, or what political office they're willing to hand over.

Dan Johnson had cracked the code, but boy was it exhausting.

Running from demons and fires and lies all the time.

Covering your tracks with new motorcycle tires, tattoos and cowboy boots.

Trying to convince people that you're someone you're not.

A wolf in priest clothing.

On December 13th, 2017, the day after the press conference, Rebecca Johnson woke up from a nap to find her husband missing.

Earlier, Dan had been lying next to her, trying to comfort her as she dealt with the migraine.

Rebecca thought Dan might have gotten up to put some more wood in the fireplace, but she couldn't find him anywhere in the house.

None of the kids had seen him either.

So Rebecca checked her phone.

It was about 7 or 8 p.m.

No text from Dan, no missed calls.

And then she opened Facebook.

There was a new post from Dan Johnson.

Rebecca's hands trembled as she read it.

Quote,

The accusations from NPR are false.

God and only God knows the truth.

Nothing is the way they make it out to be.

America will not survive this type of judge and jury fake news.

Conservatives take a stand.

I love God and I love my wife, was the best wife in the world.

My love forever.

My mom and dad.

My family and all five of my kids and nine grandchildren, two wind tummies and many more to come.

Each of you is a total gift from God.

Stay strong, Rebecca needs you.

9-11, 2001, New York City, World Trade Center, PTSD 24-7, 16 years, is a sickness that will take my life.

But heaven is my home.

Please listen closely.

Only three things I ask of you to do if you love me.

Number one, blame no person.

Satan is the accuser, so blame the devil himself.

Number two, forgive and love everyone, especially yourself number three most importantly love God

P.S.

I love my friends your family God loves all people no matter what

yes I was calling I was on Facebook and I know this sounds stupid but Dan Johnson who is our representative

and lives in Mount Washington, made a very public post and it does appear like he's contemplating suicide.

It's not a very veiled threat.

Meanwhile, Dan Johnson is outside of his car on a riverbank just past the bridge not far from his home.

He's wearing a plaid shirt, blue jeans, and black boots.

He's got a tube of chapstick in his pocket and a single gunshot wound in his head.

The police were alerted after someone reported the ominous Facebook post.

A neighbor found his body.

Dan Johnson was pronounced dead at the scene, 8:20 p.m.

He was 57 years old.

New tonight, police in Kentucky say a Republican lawmaker killed himself this evening, just days after allegations surface that he molested a 17-year-old girl.

In a Facebook post today, State Representative Dan Johnson said, I cannot handle it any longer.

Heaven is my home.

His body was found near a bridge with a gunshot wound to his head.

The girl was a member of his church.

Johnson had denied the accusations.

Dan Johnson's suicide sent ripples throughout Kentucky.

Jeff Hoover, one of his political allies who had recently resigned as House Speaker, tweeted, quote, In America, those accused of wrongdoing are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Personal attacks don't have to be part of politics.

Governor Matt Bevan wrote, My heart breaks for his family tonight.

These are heavy days in Frankfurt and in America.

The general public reacted predictably.

Some were saddened by the death but thankful for the exposure.

Some blamed a Me Too movement they claimed had spiraled out of control.

Others questioned the media's role in all of this, a question the media was asking itself.

The president of Louisville Public Media released a statement expressing sadness about Dan Johnson's death but made it clear they were standing by their story.

Quote, Our aim, as always, is to provide the public with fact-based, unbiased reporting and hold public officials accountable for their actions.

As part of our process, we reached out to Representative Johnson numerous times over the course of a seventh-month investigation.

He declined requests to talk about our findings.

The Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting won a Peabody Award for the Pope's Long Con in 2017.

It's one of the most prestigious honors in radio.

Journalist R.G.

Dunlop conceded to the Columbia Journalism Review that his reporting may have factored into Johnson's death, but obviously that was not the intention.

Quote: No one has challenged any aspect of the story.

It's not as though a story that was erroneous brought this man down.

We revealed his life history, and it obviously didn't resonate well with him.

While in my head, I understand I didn't kill Mr.

Johnson.

He pulled the trigger.

It feels very difficult to get over the emotional part of this.

We wanted justice to be done, but nobody wanted him dead.

The widow, Rebecca Johnson, begged to differ.

The media has been bullying people, and it's not right.

They just attacked him.

They harassed him from the day he went into office.

He was followed, dogged.

He did not get a fair shake.

Good men are being destroyed over political gain.

Is it really worth it?

Is there really anybody good enough anymore?

Is anybody good enough to do anything?

My God.

You can't turn on the TV without seeing somebody being attacked for sexual harassment.

Last year, it was prejudice.

This year the thing that's in is sexual harassment.

I'm wondering what it's going to be next year.

It's ridiculous.

Why can't we get along?

Why can't we let people do their job?

Are we so greedy and selfish that we have to destroy one another?

I am confident if that little greasy reporter had not done what he did, my husband would be alive right now.

In the following days after Dan's suicide, Rebecca Johnson was giving interviews at the Heart of Fire Church.

She called his death a high-tech lynching by the media and discounted Miranda Richmond's claims.

Rebecca also placed some of the blame for what happened on Dan's political rival, Linda Belcher, as if there was room for more blood on her shoes.

I really want to finish my husband's term.

I just want to finish what he started.

Rebecca Johnson also announced that she would be running to fill her husband's empty chair in the Kentucky state legislature.

The special election was held in February 2018.

More than two-thirds of the 5,000 votes went to Rebecca's opponent, Linda Belcher.

Rebecca Johnson's political career had come to an end before it even started.

But luckily, she still had the church where she had also tried to replace her husband, preaching fire and brimstone every Sunday.

Father, I thank you right now for your anointing that breaks every yoke and bondage,

every curse, every lie, every scheme, every plot, plan that the the enemy has devised against us to ruin us, to hurt us, to hold us back, that it's broken, that it's uprooted, that it has no place in Jesus' name.

I thank you that our enemies fall in the pit that they made for us.

God, I thank you that you give us laughter.

Lord, give us laughter like you have.

The same laughter where you laugh at our enemies, that you see their day coming.

God, let us have laughter.

When the enemy brings harm to us or tries to hold us back, that we begin to laugh, laugh, laugh.

Less than a year later, the federal government effectively owned the Heart of Fire Church.

All of its property was seized and auctioned off due to non-payment of the low-interest loans it had accepted to rebuild when it burned down.

Who's laughing now?

Certainly not Rebecca Johnson.

And certainly not Miranda Richmond, who was reportedly devastated when she heard the news about Dan Johnson's death.

Miranda began receiving messages and threats from strangers around the country.

She and her fiancé had installed a security system at their house.

Miranda even received a text from her old friend Sarah Johnson, calling her a liar.

Before the story was published, Louisville PD had contacted Miranda Richmond to notify her that the case against Dan Johnson had been reopened.

But after his death, it was closed again.

According to the police, there was no point in carrying on.

There was no one to hold accountable, no justice.

And sometimes that's just the way the story ends.

Swindled is written, researched, produced, and hosted by me, a concerned citizen, with original music by Trevor Howard, aka Dformer.

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Thanks for listening.

My name is Dr.

Ann Workowski from Southern California.

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