President Donald Trump and his allies continue to have a hard time grappling with the facts of the Russia scandal and more specifically, the aftermath of the conclusion of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. This weekend on ABC, Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) ranted and raved — at times at an alarming speed and volume — about just how off the rails the Justice Department supposedly really went in ever investigating the Russia scandal in the first place. His tactics were almost comical in terms of how blatant he got with his attempts at scaremongering.
He shouted at host George Stephanopoulos, discussing testimony that Attorney General William Barr had offered before Congress:
‘There was definitely a failure of leadership at the upper echelon of the FBI. Then he said three other things that everyone should pay attention to. He said spying did occur. He said second that there’s a basis for his concern about the spying that took place, and then maybe most important, he used two terms that should scare all your viewers. He used the term unauthorized surveillance and political surveillance and he’s going to find out if all that actually happened — the evidence seems to suggest that it did.’
Rep. Jim Jordan defends Attorney General Bill Barr’s investigation into intelligence agencies amid criticism from Democrats: “There was definitely a failure of leadership of the upper echelon of the FBI” https://t.co/23FItTxhWo pic.twitter.com/lOlxrnXWdg
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) June 2, 2019
Whew that’s a lot. So in short, Jordan would like Americans to run around in a craze because of two phrases that are supposed to be “scary”? This is not a stretch, it’s exactly what he said. He’s so far off into his fantasy land of whatever on earth he’s working with here that he isn’t even trying to tie the scare tactics to anything concrete anymore beyond vaguely citing the supposed existence of evidence somewhere out there — which in reality, he’s lying about.
The part he conveniently left out is that Barr admitted to Congress that he had no actual evidence of any improper behavior on the part of those carrying out the surveillance against Trump associates that was a part of the Russia investigation and has the president’s camp so frenzied. After Barr’s testimony, FBI Director Christopher Wray spoke to Congress and said he would not necessarily say that “spying” occurred because, as he put it, “lots of people have different colloquial phrases.”
Jordan didn’t mention this, and it’s obvious why.
He went on to shout about Special Counsel Robert Mueller supposedly failing in his fundamental duties as a prosecutor covering the Russia probe, ranting:
‘I got questions for him. I think the one question most Americans want to know: When did you first learn there was no collusion? The central charge of Bob Mueller, his central task was to find if there was any collusion.’
“That’s up to Jerry Nadler. I know this: I got questions for him,” Rep. Jim Jordan says when asked if Mueller should testify before Congress.
“I think the one question most Americans want to know: when did you first learn there was … no collusion?” https://t.co/9q2coPVRHA pic.twitter.com/iiM6Qwcrwq
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) June 2, 2019
As Stephanopoulos noted, examining the question of collusion wasn’t even Mueller’s purview. He examined whether there was a criminally prosecutable conspiracy between the Trump team and Russian efforts to tilt the 2016 U.S. elections. Jordan claimed that the two concepts were interchangeable and always have been, which is a lie — if they were, why didn’t Mueller use the broader term “collusion”? The facts of the Trump team’s ties to Russia Trump’s subsequent obstruction of the attempt to uncover the truth remain, with or without a conspiracy.
Featured Image via screenshot
