Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee tore into some of the obfuscation from Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who is chairing that panel, during recent proceedings. In short, he resisted acknowledging some of the well-established basics of how the federal government was what one might call weaponized with Trump in charge, and Democrats — including Reps. Steve Cohen (Tenn.) and Adam Schiff (Calif.) — had the facts.
“I’ve been concerned about the weaponization of the federal government program,” Cohen said. “I think it’s pretty clear that the federal government, Justice Department was weaponized during the previous administration. Michael Cohen went to jail for doing what Donald Trump asked him to do. Donald Trump was called ‘Individual 1.’ He didn’t go to jail. He didn’t even go to jail when the administration changed and Merrick Garland came in. They let the statute of limitations run, which, why? I don’t know.” The Congressman also noted how the former Trump associate was returned to custody while serving his sentence in the hush money case amid what was evidently a dispute over that Trump ally-turned-repeated witness seeking to publish a book.
The Congressman asked to return to this issue in the panel’s deliberations, and Jordan didn’t even answer the question. Instead, he claimed Cohen — the ex-Trump ally, not the Congressman — repeatedly lied in a hearing years ago of the House Oversight panel. “Should we not be able to study that, because you don’t know it?” Cohen asked in this hearing, referring to the details of the former Trump ally’s case. “I know it. It’s clearly out there in the public sector… and it’s been shown that the federal government and Barr did it. Shouldn’t we study that? That’s weaponization.” Jordan began complaining about entirely different topics. “The question was, can we go back to what Trump did to weaponize the Justice Department?” Cohen continued. “I don’t know about parents. I’m all for parents. But that’s not the issue!”
Schiff subsequently joined the conversation, including by pointing out the controversial intervention before Trump ally Roger Stone was sentenced. “The Durham investigation of the investigators? A complete bust!” Schiff noted. “A complete waste of money and a bust.” Schiff also contested the idea that some of the parameters from Republicans for the panel’s work weren’t carrying an implied conclusion. Actually, the language they used was decisively loaded, taking weaponization of federal resources against opponents of Democrats as a given. The hearing of the panel that was underway was covering where the committee would be putting its focus.
A special subcommittee of the judiciary panel just for investigating the so-called weaponization of the federal government already held a public hearing, where Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), as a witness, noted some of the dangers of false rhetoric about the government’s actions, including the real-world example of the armed stand-off with someone who sought to attack an office of the FBI after that agency raided Mar-a-Lago in the ongoing classified documents investigation.
Watch the committee proceedings below:
