In an unfortunate, face-palm-inducing incident that occurred in the wake of President Donald Trump’s magnificent State of the Union address on the night of Wednesday, March 4, the chief of staff for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who had to throw Rep. Green out of the House during the speech, was arrested on a drunk driving charge in the District of Colombia.
That chief of staff is Hayden Haynes, who has reportedly known Speaker Johnson for over a decade and has served as chief of staff to Johnson since he was sworn in as Speaker of the House. He was arrested by Capitol police about twenty minutes before midnight on the night of March 4, with the arrest apparently precipitated by his backing into a Capitol vehicle, striking it.
In a statement to Breitbart News, the United States Capitol Police told the outlet, “A driver backed into a parked vehicle last night around 11:40 p.m.” The police noted that the chief of staff was arrested when they responded to the crash, saying, “We responded and arrested them for DUI.” After the arrest, Haynes was apparently released and given a “citation to appear in court.”
Taylor Haulsee, a spokesperson for Speaker Johnson, released a statement to the media on the matter of the arrest and accident. In the statement, Haulsee said that Speaker Johnson was “aware of the encounter that occurred last night,” and that he still “has full faith and confidence in Hayden’s ability to lead the Speaker’s office.”
That statement from Haulsee provided, Breitbart News reports: “The Speaker is aware of the encounter that occurred last night involving his Chief of Staff and the Capitol Police. The Speaker has known and worked closely with Hayden for nearly a decade and trusted him to serve as his Chief of Staff for his entire tenure in Congress. Because of this and Hayden’s esteemed reputation among Members and staff alike, the Speaker has full faith and confidence in Hayden’s ability to lead the Speaker’s office.”
MSNBC Executive Producer Kyle Griffin, drawing attention to the incident on X (formerly Twitter), posted, “Breaking: Hayden Haynes, the chief of staff to House Speaker Mike Johnson, was arrested early Wednesday morning — hours after Trump’s speech — for drunken driving after his car struck a Capitol vehicle.”
Similarly, the more right-leaning Breaking 911 X account wrote, “JUST IN: Speaker Mike Johnson’s chief of staff Hayden Haynes was arrested on DUI charge after Trump speech, per NBC. ‘A driver backed into a parked vehicle last night around 11:40 p.m.,’ U.S. Capitol Police said. ‘We responded and arrested them for DUI.’”
"*" indicates required fields
However, some conservatives found the news tiresome and irrelevant, thinking it was an attempt to distract from and discredit Johnson’s good work. One such account, for example, said, “If you search “Mike Johnson DUI” on X and go to latest, pretty much every post has zero likes or reposts 🤣 no one even cares! The MSM is so full of shit that I bet you they planted that cop to try to garner some sort of negative attention.”
Watch the incident in which Rep. Green was tossed from the House by Speaker Johnson here:
Featured image credit: By Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America – Mike Johnson, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=139920652