Jim Jordan shouldn’t be chair of the House Judiciary committee, he should be on trial for attempting to overturn the 2020 election

This week the House GOP leadership—by way of their 30 member GOP Steering Committee--made their selections for chairs of the 17 House committees.  Did they pick people who stood up for democracy against Donald Trump’s attempted coup? Stop laughing. Of course not.

Instead, the House Republicans picked for committee chairs eleven Representatives who basely voted against certifying the 2020 election.  As a reminder, these new committee chairs—such as Rep. Mike Rogers, the Armed Services Committee chair and Rep. Mark Green, who now heads the Committee on Homeland Security--voted to overturn the election after the vicious Jan 6 attack by thousands of Trump supporters seeking to keep Trump stay in power despite losing the election.  These GOP members of Congress were helping Trump achieve through their votes what his supporters could not achieve through violence.

The worst of the bunch, though, is new House Judiciary Committee Chair Rep. Jim Jordan. The Ohio Republican did far, far more than just vote to not certify the election results. As the Jan 6 committee’s final report details, Jordan was "a significant player in President Trump's efforts" to overturn the election.  

If you haven’t checked out what the Jan 6 committee wrote about Jordan’s efforts, I highly recommend you check out the report starting with the last paragraph of page 114. Once you read it, it’s clear Jordan—like Trump—should be facing criminal charges for his role in the obstruction of an official proceeding (18 U.S.C. Section 1512(c)(2)) and conspiracy to defraud the United States (18 U.S.C. Section 371) . (Those are two of the four crimes the Jan 6 committee referred Trump to DOJ for prosecution.) Let me highlight just a small part of Jordan’s repeated and continual efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

For starters, the report notes that Jordan “participated in numerous post-election meetings in which senior White House officials, Rudolph Giuliani, and others, discussed strategies for challenging the election, chief among them claims that the election had been tainted by fraud.” (As Jordan knew full well, the election had not been “tainted by fraud” as every court that considered Trump and his allies claims to overturn the results back up.)

The report also documents Jordan’s leadership role in the effort to prevent the certification of Biden’s victory. For example, the report details that, “On January 2, 2021, Representative Jordan led a conference call in which he, President Trump, and other Members of Congress discussed strategies for delaying the January 6th joint session.”

During that very call, they talked not only strategy for the Jan 6 certification process but also stunningly “discussed issuing social media posts encouraging President Trump’s supporters to “march to the Capitol” on the 6th.”  In other words, Jordan helped with getting people to the Capitol on Jan 6 that led to the attack.

After that conference call, Jordan spoke to Trump for 18 minutes in a one on one conversation. But Jordan was not close to being done with his involvement in the effort to stop the peaceful transfer of power. As the Jan 6 committee report further details, on Jan 5, “Jordan texted Mark Meadows [Trump’s then chief of staff], passing along advice that Vice President Pence should “call out all the electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all.”

Jordan is not a lawyer. His use of legal terms like “unconstitutional” was simply a Trump loyalist advocating ways to keep Trump in power despite losing the election.

Whatever Jordan was doing Trump loved it, as backed up the report noting that during a December 27, 2020, phone call between Trump and Acting Attorney General Rosen --as Trump was trying to enlist DOJ’s efforts in his coup—he praised Jordan as a “fighter.”

Of course, Trump loved Jordan, as the report lays out Jordan had helped “spread lies about the election,” such as when Jordan--who is from Ohio--travelled to speak “at a “Stop the Steal”

rally in front of the Pennsylvania State capitol in Harrisburg, just days after the November election.” Jordan also trafficked in election lies “during interviews with friendly media outlets.”

The Jan 6 committee report notes other interactions between Jordan and Trump in the service of Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election, including speaking to Trump at least twice on Jan 6 via phone. However, as the report highlights--Jordan made “inconsistent public statements about how many times they spoke and what they discussed” on Jan 6.

Those inconsistencies by Jordan made his testimony before the Jan 6 committee even more imperative. As the report details about Jordan, he “had materially relevant communications with Donald Trump or others in the White House.”

But Jordan refused to comply with the committee’s subpoena seeking his testimony.  Given the committee was winding down in December with the new GOP controlled House taking control come Jan 3, the most the committee could do was refer Jordan--and other Republicans who did the same like newly elected Speaker Kevin McCarty--to the House Ethics committee. As the report noted, if Jordan and others who ignored the subpoenas are  “left unpunished,” it “undermines Congress’s longstanding power to investigate in support of its lawmaking authority.”

The  GOP House leadership not only didn’t punish Jordan, they elevated him to chair of the Judiciary committee. And on Friday, Jordan announced an investigation into President Biden over the recently discovered classified documents at the President’s former office and home. Jordan is now investigating the very President he tried to unlawfully prevent from taking power.

Jordan should be facing criminal charges for his role in Trump’s coup attempt and criminal contempt for refusing to comply with a subpoena. Instead, the GOP has rewarded him.

The House GOP leadership is telling the nation who they believe is deserving of positions of power—and that is people who sought to end our democratic Republic in the service of Trump.  This is the very definition of unAmerican.

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