Jim Jordan tried to help Trump mount a coup. Now he gets to be speaker?
Jim Jordan tried to help Trump mount a coup. Now he gets to be speaker?
There are lots of problems with the far-right congressman. But January 6 stands out.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), like Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the man he hopes to replace as House speaker, lies a lot. Jordan’s rapid-style monologues—on topics such as Russia’s attack on the 2016 election, Donald Trump’s 2019 effort to extort Ukraine, Hunter Biden, and internet censorship—are often loaded with allegations that are demonstrably false. He has made pushing pro-Trump disinformation a priority for the GOP caucus. As the House Judiciary Committee chairman, he presides over a subcommittee on the supposed “weaponization” of the federal government that is mostly devoted to furthering Trump’s claim that the former president is a victim of the Deep State and facing four indictments only because of a vast conspiracy. Jordan uses that post to promote the belief system of the Fox News bubble. And though he may stand out from his colleagues on brazenness, on most topics, his fibs align with his fellow House Republicans.
But Jordan, a leading contender for the speakership, does differ from his GOP colleagues in an important way: his unique role in helping Trump try to steal the 2020 election and launch the January 6 riot.
.@Jim_Jordan claims he never said the election was stolen. That’s not what the video shows. Let’s roll the tape, shall we? pic.twitter.com/wOLI9l3TQW
— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) January 12, 2021
Many Republicans endorsed Trump’s Big Lie about the election. But Jordan was one of only a handful of congressional Republicans who actively conspired with Trump to overturn the election results. As he runs for House speaker, Republicans appear eager to ignore that. Yet by embracing Jordan they tie themselves further to that attack on democracy and the Constitution.
Jordan was an early and enthusiastic recruit in Trump’s war on the republic and reality—in public and in private.
Days after the November election, he spoke at a “Stop the Steal” rally in front of the Pennsylvania state capitol. He spread election conspiracy theories within right-wing media. He endorsed Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell’s bogus claims that Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic had robbed Trump of electoral victory. He called for a congressional investigation of electoral fraud for which there was no evidence and demanded a special counsel be appointed. He endorsed state legislatures canceling vote tallies and selecting their own presidential electors. He urged Trump not to concede. He demanded Congress not certify Joe Biden’s victory in the ceremony scheduled for January 6, 2021.
Behind the scenes, he schemed with Trump. The final report of the House select committee on January 6 lays out in damning detail Jordan’s participation in Trump’s eletion-thwarting machinations. “Representative Jordan was a significant player in President Trump’s efforts,” the committee said. “He 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 early as November, Jordan was “involved in discussions with White House officials about Vice President Pence’s role on January 6th,” the report noted—conversations that focused on whether Pence could block the certification of Biden’s win. Jordan was one of 10 Republican members of Congress who attended a White House meeting on December 21 where the topic was how to pressure Pence to undo the election.
What understanding, if any, did Trump have with Jordan? The January 6 committee did not find out. And Jordan has never fully explained his role in Trump’s scheming, let alone apologized. He refused to cooperate with the House January 6 committee’s investigation. And now he is close to becoming House speaker—second-in-line to the presidency—without accounting for his participation in Trump’s attempt to overturn an election.
But the committee did uncover evidence that Jordan was hatching some plan with Trump to mount a coup.
On December 27, 2020, the defeated president held a phone call with Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue. Trump insisted that there had been widespread fraud in the election and raised numerous allegations that had been debunked. Rosen and Donoghue repeatedly told Trump there was no evidence of significant wrongdoing. Trump pushed the pair to publicly state that this had been an “illegal” election. He cited three Republican politicians who were supporting his claim of a stolen election: Representative Scott Perry (R-Penn.), Doug Mastriano, a Pennsylvania state senator, and Jordan, whom he praised as a “fighter.”
When Rosen said to Trump that the Justice Department couldn’t “snap its fingers and change the outcome of the election,” Trump responded, “I don’t expect you to do that. Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican Congressmen.” Trump did not explain what he meant or what the GOP House members—presumably including Jordan—intended to do if the Justice Department falsely declared the election fraudulent. Rosen and Donoghue refused to issue such a statement.
On January 2, 2021, Jordan led a conference call in which he, Trump, and other members of Congress discussed strategies for delaying the January 6 joint session of Congress, where the election results would be certified. “During that call,” according to the January 6 committee, “the group also discussed issuing social media posts encouraging President Trump’s supporters to ‘march to the Capitol’ on the 6th. An hour and a half later, President Trump and Representative Jordan spoke by phone for 18 minutes.” It is not publicly known what the two discussed.
Three days later, Jordan texted White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to pass along advice that Pence should “call out all the electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all.”
On January 6—a day of violent chaos and insurrection—Jordan spoke with Trump by phone at least twice. As the committee noted, Jordan “has provided inconsistent public statements about how many times they spoke and what they discussed.” That day Jordan also received five calls from Rudolph Giuliani, and the two connected at least twice in the evening, as Giuliani was attempting to encourage members of Congress to continue objecting to Biden’s electoral votes. In the days after January 6, Jordan spoke with Trump White House staff about the prospect of presidential pardons for members of Congress.
It is obvious that Jordan knows a lot about Trump’s attempt to sabotage the constitutional order and the run-up to the January 6 riot. But he has refused to share any of this with the public. On May 12, 2022, the January 6 committee subpoenaed several Republican members of Congress—including Jordan, McCarthy, Rep. Scott Perry (R-Penn.), and Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.)—to obtain information related to its investigation. Jordan and the others refused to cooperate.
The committee referred Jordan, McCarthy, Perry, and Biggs to the House Ethics Committee for sanction for failing to comply with subpoenas. The committee noted that Jordan and the others “should be questioned in a public forum about their advance knowledge of and role in President Trump’s plan to prevent the peaceful transition of power.” It also stated that the Justice Department ought to seek testimony from Jordan regarding his “materially relevant communications with Donald Trump or others in the White House.”
Jordan was a key advocate of Trump’s election falsehood and co-conspirator in Trump’s bid to steal power. (Trump faces 17 felony charges for this effort.) He was one of the GOP’s chief crusaders pushing falsehoods that threatened the constitutional order. If his fellow Republicans elevate Jordan to speaker, they will be fully embracing Trump’s attack on the republic, and a profound threat to democracy will now be coming from inside the House.
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This will continue until we get rid of FPtP voting & the #GOP joins the Whigs in the dustbin of political history.
FTTP actively encourages a two party system. We need to change the way we vote so we can have better candidates and better representation.
I'm all for removing GOP from power, but it is not either or. You can both remove GOP power and encourage changing how we vote by promoting alternative policies like Ranked Choice Voting.
Is that why Democrats keep up the tired old fear-mongering about not voting third party and it’s so difficult for third parties to make the ballot?
It's not the "Democrats", it's a combination of FPtP voting, game theory & math.
And don't even bother arguing with me about it, prove Duverger's Law wrong instead & make yourself famous.
We'll wait.
It’s not ‘tired old fear-mongering’.
It’s a mathematical certainty.
In FPTP voting, 3rd parties are spoilers, usually for the worst. If you want change, stop being edgy and learn how things actually work, then lobby to fix the actual problem. Be an agent of positive change instead of a bollard.
Oh my, whatever will I do after forty years of working fruitlessly for change. Oh it wasn’t fruitless for the fascists so i guess that’s good enough.
If you were working that hard for change, you'd be running your local party by now and would have installed representatives that you support.
Tea Party got it done in 18 months
Cuba didn’t.
Well if you're trying to start a communist revolution in America, the problem there is that your stance is deeply unpopular, so you need to take a whole further step back and try to sell communism to people.
Spoiler: it will never happen.
LOL, 🦗🦗🦗
You’ve spent 40 years lobbying for ranked choice voting? Amazing I’ve never heard of you then, because that’s quite the accomplishment.
I guess you were instrumental in getting RCV in these 17 states and are a long-standing member of Fair Vote Action. Kudos to you.
Again, there are ways to get involved beyond being a curmudgeon on the internet. I challenge you to try one.
Lobbying for change but hey! Pick RCV and be uh, what was your word? Edgy on your reply. I’ve been lobbying for rcv for a long time, I guess my pockets just aren’t as deep as those who can hire successful lobbyists.
Look, it’s a steep mountain to climb – nobody said it wasn’t. Especially because of the strong opposition, since right-wing interests actively push back on it, because they live and die by the minority rule which FTPT ensures.
My links have shown we’re making headway, though, which comments like yours undermine by turning young, impressionable people towards nihilism. I find that irresponsible and will call it out when I see it.
Yes, it’s absolutely working, as evidenced by https://kbin.social/m/politics@lemmy.world/t/527026/The-Roots-of-Today-s-Authoritarianism-Come-From-a-19th-Century and all the other inconvenient truths no one remembers. Ballot and soap aren’t working for the majority of us. That’s why the former Secretary of State in Georgia, who ran elections, “won” the governorship over Abrams and tfg “won” in 2016. Obama was an exception and he was economically right of Nixon.
I don’t understand your point. Perhaps we’re talking past one another?
What did anything in your link have to do with anything I said? I understand the history – and bigotry – behind the current political system. How does that relate to my calls for action or annoyance with nihilism?
e: I guess my overall point is I have a hard time believing someone would spend their whole life dedicated to fixing this issue then go on the internet to dissuade others.
Voting needs to be changed first. Until it's changed, third parties will never be viable, and voting for their candidates will only cause a spoiler effect for the main two parties. Considering that the GOP is fascist, they need to be removed from office for any type of reform to be made successfully to the American democracy.
Democrats had President and supermajority to change this and codify Roe. Why didn’t they? No more tired ostensible reasons. Real reasons please.
How long did they have the majority? Was there any other giant legislation they passed during this time?
Hint, it was literally a single month & that is when ACA got passed.
You really should educate yourself about that point in history & stop repeating the #GOP / Useful Idiot "talking points".
Well jaysun, we keep going farther right based on your suggestions. I guess we should keep doing that until the Bellamy salute is in style again.
Constitutionally only the individual state governments can adopt better election rules that give the voters better representation. Constitutionally the President and US Congress have no authority over it. You need to focus that energy on the primaries for state offices to get the rules in that state changed. And the people who setup the gerrymandered districts and stacked executive branches to suppress the vote certainly aren't going to suddenly make it easier for us to have true representation, so you'll need a state-wide voter surge to get the Governor, Lt. Governor, Attorney General, and potentially Supreme Court (I don't know if every state elects their Supreme Courts or not) aligned in order to be able to tackle gerrymandered districts, in order to then work on the legislature.
I’m saying it needs to fall under the supremacy clause, but one side keeps compromising further right while the other complains is not far enough.
Waiting on a President and Congress to attempt this instead of pursuing it at the state level, where the Constitution says it is to be done, is not going to be a winning strategy.
The current Supreme Court doesn't believe in the supremacy clause and would rule it unconstitutional. Attempting to circumvent the Supreme Court without a constitutional amendment would trigger a constitutional crisis that could destabilize the government, literally no president is ever going to do that unless they're preparing to overthrow the country.
we keep going further right
We objectively do not.
You getting upset because you are ignorant of history isn't my problem.
It sounds like you already have an only reason you’ll believe
Yep, because with first past the post voting, split votes often return a victor that the majority of voters specifically didn't want. The sad fact is that voting for a third party could help an R win political office.
I do believe that electing republicans makes the world less safe, so I hold my nose and vote for democrats.
I grew up in a country where this is just not a because we have preferential (ranked choice) voting. Minor parties are much stronger, the Greens are a legit political force.
I wish I could go back to voting for communists I personally know like back home, but I personally won't while that means helping the baddies get closer to their next coup attempt.
Hi thanks for your reasoning and I understand. The only thing is, Dems and Reps keep moving further right. We legitimately don’t have a left party with any power. We keep doing what we’ve always done and it keeps working, for the far right.
Hi! Yeah, I definitely think that's a problem. But the scope for doing real good within the system seems relatively small and I just don't think that's a problem that's fixable at the ballot box.
I vote for democrats knowing they will do their best to make the world worse - but right now at least, that's meaningfully less worse than the world republicans want.
Voting in the US, for me at least, is a harm-minimization thing. Trying to address our problems happens elsewhere.
You’re the most sane comments itt. I fully agree with the last paragraph. The fascist side has more tools to address their grievances because the “left”… well you get the idea. I’m not saying we can’t succeed; I am saying it’s not going to be pretty, or romanticized like in Hollywood craptastic movies.
Fibre to the Premises
Wait till you hear about HTTP voting
Hypertext the Post