The ‘adopted’ black son of new House Speaker Mike Johnson has spoken out for the first time in an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com.
Michael Tirrell James said he would ‘probably be in prison’ were it not for Johnson – after he appeared in a Los Angeles court Wednesday on charges of running an illegal cannabis business and possessing brass knuckles.
James has never taken part in publicity for Johnson’s political campaigns, and little has been known about the 40-year-old father of four.
But now DailyMail.com can reveal how the top GOP lawmaker and his wife Kelly informally adopted James after meeting him while doing charitable community work in Louisiana in the 1990s.
James went on to have a string of conflicts with law enforcement, beginning just a few years after the Johnsons took him in, and continuing to this day.
His rap sheet extends back to 2003 and includes a long list of drug-related and other petty crimes, some of which landed him in jail, DailyMail.com can reveal.
The 51-year-old House Speaker, elected October 25 after three weeks of confusion following the ousting of previous Speaker Kevin McCarthy, has revealed he informally adopted James, a Baton Rouge then-teenager, and raised him during the first few years of his marriage.
James told DailyMail.com: ‘If the Johnsons hadn’t taken me in as a teenager, my life would look very different today. I would probably be in prison or I might not have made it at all.’
The Louisiana Republican congressman first met James in 1996 while volunteering with Young Life, a Christian ministry catering to middle and high school teens.
The future speaker, then a 24-year-old law school student, became a mentor for the 14-year-old boy, a source close to the Speaker’s office said.
When James became homeless in 1999 age 16, newlyweds Mike and Kelly Johnson took him in, filing papers with the local Baton Rouge district court to become his legal guardians.
His life appears to have gotten back on track after the informal adoption. He earned his G.E.D. and graduated from a Job Corps program in 2002, and even ‘began to refer to the Johnsons as his parents, and they regarded him as a son,’ the source said.
The Johnsons later had four biological children: Jack, Will, Hannah, and Abigail.
Hellbound and Down 