Liz Cheney is right about Jim Jordan’s involvement in Trump’s plot to overturn the 2020 election

Will the GOP reward Trump's co-conspirator?

Former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney—who was vice-chair the bipartisan House Jan 6 committee—is warning the nation about fellow Republican Jim Jordan who is one of the leading candidates in the race to be elected Speaker of the House. Hopefully, the rest of our country that isn’t aware of  Jordan’s efforts to help Trump overturn the 2020 election will pay attention.

During her speech Thursday at the University of Minnesota, Cheney told the audience point blank, “Jim Jordan knew more about what Donald Trump had planned for Jan. 6 than any other member of the House of Representatives.”

She then added powerfully, “Jim Jordan was involved and was part of the conspiracy in which Donald Trump was engaged as he attempted to overturn the election.”

What Cheney is saying is 100 percent correct. As I detailed Thursday in my article, “Jim Jordan should not be Speaker, he should be a co-defendant in Trump’s attempted coup case,” the final Jan 6 committee’s report documented that “Jordan was a significant player in President Trump’s efforts” to overturn the 2020 election.

Jordan went way beyond simply amplifying Trump’s election lies “during interviews with friendly media outlets” —as the Jan 6 report details Jordan did in fact do. The Ohio Republican was a leader in helping Trump develop and execute his plot to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s victory when Congress met on Jan 6.  For example, the report documents his leadership role, writing 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.”  Jordan was not a passive part of that call, he “led” that planning meeting.

During that call just days before Jan 6, the discussion not only included strategizing for stopping the congressional certification process but also “discussed issuing social media posts encouraging President Trump’s supporters to ‘march to the Capitol’ on the 6th.” That means Jordan was aware prior to Jan 6 of the plan to send Trump supporters to the Capitol to “Stop the Steal.” 

And on the day before Jan 6—as described in the report-- “Jordan texted Mark Meadows (Trump’s chief of staff), passing along advice that Vice President (Mike) Pence should ‘call out all the electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all.” In other words, Jordan was giving specific advice for how Pence should prevent the certification of Biden’s win in the service of Trump’s plot for which Trump is now charged with crimes by Special Counsel Jack Smith including with conspiracy to “obstruct and impede the January 6 congressional proceeding.”

Jordan should rightfully be a co-defendant in the case with Trump as former federal prosecutor and current MSNBC legal analyst Glenn Kirschner laid out on my SiriusXM show Friday. (Video below)

We also know that  Jordan made “inconsistent public statements about how many times” he spoke to Trump on Jan 6  as well as “received five calls from Rudolph Giuliani that evening, and the two connected at least twice, at 7:33 p.m. and 7:49 p.m.”  And “in the days following January 6th, Representative Jordan spoke with White House staff about the prospect of Presidential pardons for Members of Congress.”

That is a big reason why the Jan 6 committee subpoenaed Jordan. However, Jordan refused to comply with the subpoena. 

It was these efforts by Jordan and many more outlined in the Jan 6 report that led Cheney to tell the audience that Jordan was one of the “leaders” of Trump’s illegal scheme. Cheney then posed a question she wanted to ask Jordan: “Why didn’t you report to the Capitol police what you knew Donald Trump had planned?”

That line drew a loud round of applause from the audience. Hopefully, Democrats and others who oppose Jordan will raise that very point on the House floor during this week’s Speaker vote.

How could anyone like Jordan who was involved in a leadership role in Trump’s efforts to overturn the election—which Trump is now facing criminal charges for—and who willfully ignored a congressional subpoena serve as Speaker of the House?!  And very alarmingly, if Jordan was elected Speaker, he would second in the line of succession to President of the United States behind only the Vice President.

But Jordan might just win, especially given Trump’s endorsement of Jordan on Friday where he posted on social media, Jordan “will be a GREAT Speaker of the House, & has my Complete & Total Endorsement!”

Of course, Trump believes that Jordan would be “great” given how doggedly Jordan worked to help Trump achieve his goal of subverting the 2020 election. In fact, the Jan 6 committee report notes that during a December 27, 2020, phone call between Trump and top Department of Justice officials where Trump tried but was rebuffed in his efforts to enlist their help in his plot, he praised Jordan as a “fighter.”

During her speech Thursday, former GOP Rep. Cheney shared that she did not believe Jordan would ultimately be elected Speaker. However, she declared if House Republicans did elect Jordan to be in charge of the very chamber of Congress he worked to undermine, “there would no longer be any possible way to argue that a group of elected Republicans could be counted on to defend the Constitution.”

Cheney is right.  But I do believe the bulk of the House GOP has already made their choice to side with Trump and the MAGA movement over the U.S. Constitution. Given the stakes, silence is complicity.

Rejecting Jordan as Speaker would at least prevent Trump’s co-conspirator from being rewarded for his efforts to erase the voice of more than 81 million Americans who voted for President Biden.  But if the GOP elevates Jordan to Speaker that must be viewed as yet another step in their rejection of democracy and their further embrace of MAGA’s fascism.

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