This articlefirst appeared on Mother Jones. It has been republished with the publications permission.On Tuesday, HouseSpeaker Mike Johnson, in a departure from his previous calls for transparency,announcedthat he would not ask for a vote on whether the files pertaining to accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein should be released. Only a week before, on the right-wing podcast The Benny Show, he hadsaid, Its a very delicate subject, but we should put everything out there and let the people decide it. This week, he changed his tune, and at a press conference, he said, We need the administration to have the space to do what it is doing. He allowed that should there be a neccesary or appropriate need for further congressional action, he would look at it. But then said emphatically, I dont think were at that point yet, because we agree with the president.Its impossible to truly know what prompted Johnsons about-face, but its worth noting that he haslong beenconnectedto the New Apostolic Reformation, a charismatic evangelical movement that teaches that Christians are called to take dominion over all aspects of society, including the government. Johnson has publicly acknowledged that NAR has had a profound influence on his life, according to areportissued by the Congressional Freethought Caucus last year. Insights for the LGBTQ+ community Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more. Subscribe to our Newsletter today Its also worth noting that arguably the most influential and visible NAR leader, aTexas business strategistnamed Lance Wallnau, has been outspoken in recent weeks in his defense of Trump on the Epstein issue. On July 14, Wallnautoldhis 100,000 YouTube followers that he believed that Trump was acting in the best interest of the country by not releasing the files. Wallnaus line of reasoning began with his suggestion that both the assassination of JFK and the assassination attempt on Trump last year in Butler, Pennsylvania, were inside jobs. He went on to describe Trumps critics on the left as demonic people who smell disunity in MAGA and are using the infighting as an opportunity to tarnish Trumps reputation. I think they would be willing to plant information and evidence and create false trails, all kinds of booby traps, he said.Among Wallnaus followers are some powerful people. As I reportedlast year, Wallnau has forged strong connections with GOP leadersfor example, hehosteda Pennsylvania campaign event for JD Vance last September. He also helped developProject 19, a right-wing political initiative to win 19 key counties in swing states for Trump. Wallnau has called Kamala Harris a Jezebel and speculated that people on the political left may be controlled bydemons.Another prominent Christian nationalist influencer, Texas pastor Joel Webbon, has also arrived at a belief in Trumps innocencebut from a different perspective. Webbon isnt connected with the NAR like Johnson and Wallnauinstead, hes a member of theTheoBros, a network of Christian nationalist millennial influencers. Many of them believe that women shouldnt be allowed to vote, and that the Ten Commandments should replace the US Constitution. Like NAR, the TheoBros are also well-connected to Republican politicians. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegsethattendsa TheoBros-aligned church, and Vance hassocializedwith members of the movement, as well. Last week, Webbon devoted anepisodeof his YouTube show, which has 123,000 followers, to the Epstein files. His guest was Scott Horton, a libertarian podcaster and staunch critic of the left-wing government deep state that Trump has consistently blamed for all of Americas ills. In the episode, Horton asserted that he didnt believe that Trump would be implicated in the Epstein files. Moreover, he argued that Epstein was a foreign asset, likely working with the Israeli national intelligence agency Mossad to entrap Trump.Hes not alone in believing this particular conspiracy theory; it was alsoput forthby right-wing broadcaster Tucker Carlson, who also hosted Horton on his show. This isnt just like, oh my goodness, maybe we had somebody working with Israeli intelligence that was blackmailing politicians here in America, said Webbon. The reality is that [US-Israeli relations have] been a toxic relationship stretching back decades. He added, This is becoming a massive problem that people are noticing, as the kids say.The latter was an allusion to the antisemitic trope of noticing, a phrase that refers to people taking note of the fact that a powerful person is Jewish.A link between Epstein, who was Jewish, and Mossad fed neatly into Webbons preexisting biases. He has routinely expressed antisemitic views on social media. Last November, hepostedon X, I hate Judaism but love Jews and wish them a very pleasant conversion to Christianity. In a podcastepisode, he called Judaism a parasitical religion. What it has done historically throughout the ages is typically go into other countries, other peoples with other religions, and kind of cozy up but not really for their benefitnot a mutually beneficial relationship, but where they ultimately get far more out of the deal than the Christian nation does. In an email toMother Joneslast year, Webbon said he stands by everything Ive said about Judaism. It is a pernicious evil.Meanwhile, some other evangelicalsthough not Trump supporters are pushing for the administration to release the files. Last week,Christianity Todayeditor-in-chief Russell Moore penned anop-edin his magazine titled Why We Want to See the Epstein Files. The main reason was that we want justice done, he wrote. We want to believe that our institutionseven in the present crises of credibility that most are going throughare not wholly corrupt.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.