U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson assailed the U.S. judicial system on Tuesday as he became the highest-ranking Republican to attend court with Donald Trump, echoing unsubstantiated or disproven arguments made by the former president and his allies.

It was a remarkable moment in modern American politics. The powerful House speaker signaled a turn of his political party against the federal and state legal systems and demonstrated further loyalty toward Trump, who is accused of having arranged secret payments to a porn actress to hide negative stories during his successful 2016 campaign for president.

Johnson, a lawyer who is second in line for the presidency, called the court system “corrupt” and the case against Trump a “sham,” while alleging without proof that the special counsel who’s charged Trump in two separate cases has doctored evidence. He also attacked the credibility of Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer who began his second day of testimony in the former president’s hush money trial.

Trump’s campaign has lined up allies in recent days to appear at the New York courthouse to attack witnesses and others whom Trump is barred by a judge’s gag order from criticizing himself.

Also with the presumptive GOP presidential nominee on Tuesday were U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum — both considered possible vice presidential candidates — as well as former GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, one of Trump’s current top surrogates.

U.S. Sens. JD Vance of Ohio and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama were among those who attended court on Monday.

Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said Monday that he appeared last week at the invitation of Trump senior advisor Susie Wiles. The campaign has said others volunteered to come to New York.

Their presence and comments critical of the process and its participants have let Trump and his allies to amplify their message without risking another explicit violation of a gag order.

Johnson specifically criticized three people Trump is prohibited from insulting. He assailed Cohen as “a man who is clearly on a mission for personal revenge,” said lead prosecutor Matthew Colangelo “recently received over $10,000 in payments from the Democratic National Committee” and said the daughter of Judge Juan M. Merchan has made “millions of dollars” doing online fundraising for Democrats.

Johnson has been using the pulpit of the speaker’s office in Washington to attack the U.S. judicial system, criticizing the courts as biased against the former president, claiming the case is politically motivated by Democrats and insisting Trump has done nothing wrong.

And Johnson, who is dependent on support from Trump to keep the speaker’s gavel, is far from alone. A growing number of Republicans have been turning against the U.S. system of justice in a stark assault as they trek to the courthouse to stand with the indicted former president.

Johnson has aimed to strengthen his alliance with Trump as the speaker has come under fire from his own caucus in the House, including a failed effort at his removal by a fellow Trump backer, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

Johnson made an appearance with the former president at his Mar-a-Lago club last month to announce new House legislation to require proof of citizenship for voting, echoing Trump’s baseless claims that Democrats are abetting immigrants entering the U.S. illegally to swing elections.

There isn’t any indication that noncitizens vote in significant numbers in federal elections or that they will in the future.

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Kinnard reported from Columbia, South Carolina. Lisa Mascaro in Washington and Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.

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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP

• More than 300 Syrian refugees returned to Syria from two remote northeastern towns in crisis-stricken Lebanon on Tuesday.
• Lebanese officials have been urging the international community to either resettle refugees or facilitate their return to Syria.
• Lebanon, with a population of 6 million, hosts nearly 780,000 registered Syrian refugees and many more unregistered ones.

More than 300 Syrian refugees headed back home to Syria in a convoy on Tuesday, leaving two remote northeastern towns in crisis-stricken Lebanon where anti-refugee sentiment has been surging in recent months.

Lebanese officials have long urged the international community to either resettle the refugees in other countries or help them return to Syria. Over the past months, leading Lebanese political parties have become increasingly vocal, demanding that Syrian refugees go back.

A country of about 6 million people, Lebanon hosts nearly 780,000 registered Syrian refugees and hundreds of thousands who are unregistered — the world’s highest refugee population per capita.

VIOLENCE IN SYRIA RISES, AID DRIES UP AS CIVIL WAR BEGINS 14TH YEAR

In the northeastern town of Arsal, Syrian refugees piled their belongings onto the back of trucks and cars on Tuesday as Lebanese security officers collected their U.N. refugee agency cards and other paperwork before clearing them to leave.

As the trucks pulled away, the refugees waved to friends and relatives staying behind, heading to an uncertain future in Syria.

Ahmad al-Rifai, on his way to the Qalamoun Mountains after over a decade in Lebanon, said that whatever the situation was in Syria, “it’s better to live in a house than in a tent.”

Lebanese security forces this year stepped up deportations of Syrians, although nowhere near the level threatened two years ago when the Lebanese government announced a plan to deport some 15,000 Syrians every month, to what they dubbed ” safe areas,” in cooperation with the government in Damascus.

AIRSTRIKES IN SYRIA KILL AN IRANIAN ADVISER AND A MEMBER OF A WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION TEAM

Tuesday’s convoy from the mountainous towns of Arsal and Qaa consisted of only 330 refugees who had signed up for repatriation, the first such “voluntary return” return organized by Lebanese security forces since late 2022.

“Nobody can not be happy to return to their home,” Ahmad Durro told The Associated Press while waiting in his truck. “I signed up a year ago to be in the convoy.”

But many other Syrians — especially young men facing compulsory military service or political opponents of the government of President Bashar Assad — say it’s unsafe to return.

Others see no future in Syria, where in many parts the fighting may have died down but an economic crisis has pulled millions into poverty.

An increasing number of refugees in Lebanon have taken to the sea in an attempt to reach Europe.

The UNHCR has said it only supports voluntary returns of Syrians based on informed consent. Yet, major human rights organizations remain skeptical of the voluntary nature of these returns amid anti-refugee hostility in Lebanon.

“Syrian refugees are, targeted by both geo sources and host communities. They are subjected to violence, insults and other degrading treatment,” Amnesty International’s deputy Middle East and North Africa Regional Director Aya Majzoub told the AP, also decrying curfews and other restrictions imposed on refugees by a handful of Lebanese municipalities.

“So our assessment is that in these conditions, it is very difficult for refugees to make free and informed decisions about returning to Syria.”

Amnesty International and other human rights organizations have documented cases of refugees detained and tortured by Syrian security agencies upon their return.

The UNHCR says nine out of 10 Syrian refugees in Lebanon live in extreme poverty and need humanitarian aid to survive. That aid has declined amid donor fatigue and as international attention shifted to other crises.

Many increasingly impoverished Lebanese have accused Syrian refugees of benefitting from the aid while beating Lebanese to jobs by accepting lower pay. Lebanon’s ruling political parties and leadership claim that most Syrians living in the tiny Mediterranean country are economic migrants rather than refugees escaping the war at home, now in its 13th year. Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group, a top ally of Assad, has made such an allegation.

“They have dollars and they are sending those dollars to relatives in Syria,” Nasrallah said in a speech on Monday.

Lebanese security agents have in the past weeks raided shops and other businesses employing undocumented Syrian workers, and shut them down.

The European Union this month announced an aid package worth about $1.06 billion of which about 200 million euros would go to security and border control, in an apparent bid to curb migration from Lebanon to Cyprus, Italy, and other parts of Europe.

While Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati welcomed the aid, other officials described it as a bribe for tiny Lebanon to keep the refugees.

Parliament is to discuss the EU package on Wednesday, with lawmakers from the entire political spectrum expected to ramp up anti-refugee sentiment and call for more refugee returns and crackdowns.

PodcastPodcast, The Take

Police in Tbilisi crack down on protesters as tens of thousands rally to oppose a controversial ‘foreign influence’ bill.

Protesters are calling it the “Russian law” – a bill in Georgia’s parliament that, if passed, would label any organisation with more than 20 percent foreign funding as a foreign agent. The bill has sparked widespread protests. Supporters say it protects Georgian sovereignty. How will it affect whether this small former Soviet republic leans towards Russia or towards the EU?

In this episode: 

• Yulia Shapovalova (@Yulisha), Al Jazeera correspondent

Episode credits:

This episode was produced by Khaled Soltan and Sarí el-Khalili with our host Kevin Hirten, in for Malika Bilal. Tabish Talib and Manahil Naveed fact-checked this episode.

Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our lead of audience development and engagement is Aya Elmileik and Adam Abou-Gad is our engagement producer.

Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio.

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