This week, the House is expected to vote on who will next become Speaker of the House after a lengthy period of procedural paralysis following the removal from that position of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). Republicans have struggled to assemble the support needed to actually put any single candidate for Speaker over the top, though now, the leading candidate (on the Republican side, specifically) is Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
Jordan currently leads the House Judiciary Committee, where he has helped steer partisan investigative ploys by the GOP majority in the House. He’s targeted, for instance, multiple prosecutors who have conducted probes that have somehow drawn in former President Donald Trump. Jordan also leads a subcommittee on the Judiciary panel that focuses on so-called “weaponization” of the federal government, though that much discussed subcommittee hasn’t even done much recently. It appears its last hearing was… three months ago. And remember, they only get two guaranteed years of control with each Congress!
And for all Jordan’s attempts to extract information from political adversaries that he could spin into his partisan charades, it remains the case that he himself defied a subpoena from the bipartisan House committee that investigated the Capitol riot and surrounding circumstances — arguably an extremely important area of inquiry, considering potential impacts on the very continuance of democracy. “Remember when Jim Jordan told the American people what he knows about the January 6th attack? No you don’t, because he never did,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) wrote on X (Twitter). “Jordan refused to answer a subpoena and is still hiding facts about the attack from the country, to this day. Republicans want to make him Speaker.”
Jordan is known to have spoken with Trump on the day of the attack on the Capitol, but he refused to ever be questioned under oath about that conversation or any other topic as his fellow members of Congress worked to uncover the truth — something they did not end with destroying their evidence, as Trump has claimed for some reason.
Remember when Jim Jordan told the American people what he knows about the January 6th attack?
No you don’t, because he never did.
Jordan refused to answer a subpoena and is still hiding facts about the attack from the country, to this day.
Republicans want to make him Speaker.
— Rep. Don Beyer (@RepDonBeyer) October 14, 2023
