Five of Hearts: House Freedom Caucus: An “insurrectionists’ clubhouse”

Looking back . . .

2020 ELECTION: The House Freedom Caucus Just Trashed What Little Credibility It Had Left​:

•  In a new low for the House Freedom Caucus as an entity, roughly two-thirds of the House Freedom Caucus, including  co-founder Rep. Jim Jordan (R–Ohio),  signed a petition in support of President Donald Trump’s long shot bid to have the U.S. Supreme Court overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump plainly lost.​
• The action should stand as a permanent reminder that they have no principles beyond doing what Trump asks. ​
•  In a more serious petition, a group of conservative legal scholars described the underlying lawsuit as making “a mockery of federalism and separation of powers.” Reason.com, Dec. 11, 2021​
• The Supreme Court rejected the lawsuit by Texas that had asked the Court to throw out the election results in four battleground states that President Trump lost in November, ending any prospect that a brazen attempt to use the courts to reverse his defeat at the polls would succeed. 
• The order, coupled with another one on Tuesday turning away a similar request from Pennsylvania Republicans, signaled that a conservative court with three justices appointed by Mr. Trump refused to be drawn into the extraordinary effort by the president and many prominent members of his party to deny his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., his victory.
• It was the latest and most significant setback for Mr. Trump in a litigation campaign that was rejected by courts at every turn. nytimes.com, Dec. 11, 2020

 

Jim Jordan’s remarkably thin legislative track record

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/16/jim-jordan-speaker-legislation-effectiveness/

From the Fringe to the Center of the G.O.P., Jordan Remains a Hard-Liner

Once a tormentor of the Republican Party’s speakers, the Ohio congressman and unapologetic right-wing pugilist has become a potential speaker himself.

By Luke Broadwater

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/06/us/politics/jim-jordan-speaker-republicans

[Excerpts:]

“That notion that he could go from ‘legislative terrorist’ to speaker of the House is just insane,” said Mike Ricci, a former aide to both Mr. Boehner and Speaker Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin.

In a Republican House that has defined itself in large part by its determination to protect Mr. Trump and attack President Biden, Mr. Jordan has been a leader of both efforts. He leads a special subcommittee on the “weaponization of government” against conservatives. He has started investigations into federal and state prosecutors who indicted Mr. Trump, and he is a co-leader of the impeachment inquiry into Mr. Biden that Mr. McCarthy formally announced last month as he worked to appease the right and cling to his post. The weaponization subcommittee has spotlighted some examples of government overreach and the impeachment inquiry has produced unflattering information against President Biden’s son Hunter, but neither has produced proof of Republicans’ boldest claims.

Mr. Jordan helped undermine faith in the 2020 presidential election results as Mr. Trump spread the lie that the election had been stolen through widespread fraud. Mr. Jordan strategized with Mr. Trump about how to use Congress’s official count of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021, to reject the results, voting to object even after a mob of Mr. Trump’s supporters attacked the Capitol. His candidacy for speaker has drawn a stark warning from former Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who was the No. 3 Republican and vice chair of the Jan. 6 committee, who said that if he prevailed, “there would no longer be any possible way to argue that a group of elected Republicans could be counted on to defend the Constitution.”

In a speech at the University of Minnesota on Wednesday, Ms. Cheney told the audience that “Jim Jordan was involved, was part of the conspiracy in which Donald Trump was engaged as he attempted to overturn the election.” [Boldface added]

 

McCarthy Locks Arms With Freedom Caucus To Jump Off Cliff

TPM Morning Memo

Sept. 21, 2023

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo

As GOP investigates prosecutors, experts worry about judicial independence

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/09/09/republican-investigations-judicial-independence/

[excerpts:]

Investigate the investigator.

. . . in the wake of 91 criminal charges against Trump, the party’s blitz of attacks on prosecutors threatens to degrade an important precedent that protects prosecutorial independence and the ability to fairly root out wrongdoing without partisan influence or gain, according to legal experts.

“Big picture, this does seem incredibly troubling,” said Caren Morrison, a former federal prosecutor who is an associate professor at Georgia State University College of Law. “For years I’ve told my students that one principle we can always rely on is the principle of prosecutorial discretion — it is unassailable and that is the essence of their power: They can choose which cases to pursue and which cases not to pursue. … We are kind of at a point where nobody agrees on what the rules are.”

And state lawmakers have begun discussions to remove Willis from her seat through a disciplinary commission in Georgia — one of several states that have recently adopted laws aimed at reining in the power of locally elected prosecutors.

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House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (Ohio), one of the three GOP chairmen who targeted Bragg, announced an investigation into Willis after an Atlanta-area grand jury indicted Trump and 18 of his associates on charges related to attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Jordan requested information regarding any federal funding the office receives, along with any correspondence between Willis’s office and the Justice Department. Republican lawmakers have also gone after David Weiss, the newly appointed special counsel tasked with prosecuting President Biden’s son Hunter after his plea deal collapsed in July. Weiss filed court papers on Wednesday saying he intends to seek an indictment against Hunter Biden by the end of this month.

Jordan and others have drawn sharp criticism from Democrats for what they view as attempts to undermine active and ongoing criminal investigations.

In a nine-page letter to Jordan sent on Thursday, Willis blasted the chairman for what she called an unconstitutional attempt “to interfere with a state criminal matter” and transgression of the separation of powers. She also warned Jordan that if House Republicans followed through on threats to deny federal funding to Willis’s office, that “such vengeful, uncalled-for legislative action would impose serious harm on the citizens we serve, including the fact that it will make them less safe.”

“Whomever is the accused deserves an adjudication which is, as much as possible, the application of law to facts, and you do everything you can to shield that inquiry from the rough-and-tumble of constituent politics,” said Robert Raben, the former Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legislative Affairs under President Bill Clinton. “There are important lines of division that should not be penetrated — and we can squabble about where those lines are — but hauling up an investigator while something is pending to influence something to which you are not a party is inappropriate,” he added.

Raben is the author of what is known as the “Linder Letter” — one of the most commonly referenced distillations of the guardrails needed between the branches of government to prevent disclosures that could compromise national security, criminal investigations, prosecutions or civil cases, and individual privacy. Written in 2000 and addressed to former congressman John Linder (R-Ga.), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Rules and Organization of the House, at the beginning of a new Congress during a presidential election year, the letter was sent in advance of an “avalanche of politically tinged investigations” from the GOP-controlled Congress, according to Raben.

It is regularly cited as the basis of the Department of Justice’s long-standing refusal to comply with information requests related to ongoing investigations. The letter was referenced by Carlos Uriarte, the assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legislative Affairs under Biden, in his inaugural correspondence with the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee, in which he reiterated the department’s practice of not providing information about ongoing investigations.

Raben’s letter was not the first to explicitly lay out reasons such a firewall is required to protect the integrity of criminal investigations and individual privacy. In 1940, Attorney General Robert H. Jackson, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, informed Congress that “all investigative reports are confidential documents of the executive department of the Government … and that congressional or public access to them would not be in the public interest.” Jackson’s opinion referenced previous conclusions by his predecessors dating back to the turn of the 20th century.

Former Attorney General Edward Levi, who was appointed in 1975 by President Gerald Ford in the wake of the Watergate scandal, delivered an address that year on the importance of confidentiality in government to preserving the separation of powers as he worked to restore the credibility of the department.

“Our ability to analyze the legal and public interests involved has become a prisoner of our vocabulary,” Levi said in the speech. “Much more is involved than the President’s personal prerogative standing against the people’s right to know. The problem is the need for confidentiality and its limitations in the public interest for the protection of the people of our country.”

The “accommodations process” between Congress and the executive branch — designed to resolve conflicts between the competing needs of both branches — has at times accommodated the investigatory interests of Congress while protecting the interests of an ongoing criminal investigation. But it’s a complicated dance that runs into what Stephen Boyd, the assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legislative Affairs under Trump, describes as a philosophical conflict between Congress and the Justice Department.

“A professional and correctly conducted Justice Department investigation starts with a fact, and then follows to another fact, and leads to some sort of conclusion,” Boyd said. “A Capitol Hill political investigation often starts with a conclusion and then looks for facts to support it. That doesn’t necessarily mean that Congress is wrong, but it means they are most interested in the things that prove their point.”

Boyd added that lawmakers serious about investigating prosecutorial misconduct have other avenues to raise issues regarding whether a case has been handled appropriately — either through the Inspector General of the Department of Justice or the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility.

In some states, however, lawmakers have enshrined into law the ability to punish prosecutors themselves.

Republican lawmakers in Georgia pushed through a law earlier this year that created a commission to discipline and remove state prosecutors who “refused to uphold the law.” Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who signed the bill into law, last month shut down calls for a special session to investigate Willis and has rejected attempts to retaliate against her. The commission’s structure is still being finalized, according to Stacey Jackson, a district attorney for the Chattahoochee Judicial Circuit who is working on the matter, but it will be able to start accepting complaints by Oct. 1, 2023. The Texas legislature also pushed through legislation this spring that gives courts the power to remove district attorneys who decide not to pursue certain crimes for misconduct.

Local efforts to pass legislation that punishes prosecutors has run parallel to Trump’s brazen attacks on the judicial system and those who have brought charges against him. Trump’s presidential campaign aired a television ad in August that leveled unsubstantiated claims against Willis, and also attacked Bragg, Smith, and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), who has sued the Trump Organization and Trump family.

Trump’s salvos against prosecutors and the Justice Department have come at a cost: The Post previously reported that the U.S. government spent nearly $2 million for U.S. Marshals to provide security to Smith and other officials between November 2022 and March 2023. Security measures have been bolstered for several other officials involved in the proceedings around Trump’s criminal charges.

Some House Republicans have recently rallied around ideas to prohibit the use of federal funding to pay for Smith’s investigation. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) introduced a bill in July proposing that “no funds authorized or appropriated by federal law and none of the funds in any trust fund to which funds are authorized or appropriated by Federal law, shall be expended for the special counsel’s office.” Some Georgia lawmakers have also pushed to defund Willis — a move that Georgia’s House Speaker Jon Burns (R) called an “attempt to interfere with the criminal justice system” and “harmful to public safety.”

Jim Jordan: Impeachment inquiry ‘looking more and more likely’

BY TARA SUTER

08/29/23 

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/jim-jordan-impeachment-inquiry-looking-more-and-more-likely

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said Tuesday that chances of an impeachment inquiry into President Biden and his family are “looking more and more likely.”

“I do think it’s looking more and more likely that we move to what’s … called an impeachment inquiry phase of our Oversight investigations relative to the Bidens, and frankly the [Department of Justice],” Jordan, also a House Oversight Committee member, said on “Fox Across America with Jimmy Failla.” 

On Sunday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that an impeachment inquiry is a “natural step forward” after House Republican-led investigations into Biden and his family, which McCarthy and other GOP leaders claim reveal improper foreign dealings.

“So, if you look at all the information we have been able to gather so far, it is a natural step forward that you would have to go to an impeachment inquiry,” McCarthy said.

House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) criticized Republicans for their recent consideration of an impeachment inquiry Tuesday morning on CNN, arguing they were merely following orders from former President Donald Trump.

“They have nothing to show for their majority throughout the year,” Jeffries said on CNN. “And so, as a natural consequence of that, they just continue to take orders from Donald Trump, their puppet master in chief, who has directed them to persecute and to go after Joe Biden, which may take the form of an illegitimate impeachment inquiry.”

 

[GOP] Lawmakers quickly react to latest Trump indictment

 

As Spending Fights Loom, Freedom Caucus Is at a Crossroads

By Annie Karni, Robert Draper and Luke Broadwater

July 25, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/25/us/politics/majorie-taylor-green-freedom-caucus

[Excerpts:]

The expulsion of [Majorie Taylor] Greene, perhaps the most famous hard-right rabble-rouser in Congress, from the group that has long styled itself as the rebellious voice of the extreme right in the House reflects something of an identity crisis within the Freedom Caucus even as a slim G.O.P. majority has given the group more power than ever.

As the Republican Party has moved further to the right, the fringe has become the mainstream, swelling the ranks of the Freedom Caucus but making it difficult for the group to stay aligned on policy and strategy. The rise of another hard-right faction in the House calling itself “the Twenty” — including some members of the caucus and some who have long refused to join — has raised questions in recent months about where the real power lies on the far right.

Still, Ms. Greene in some ways personifies the forces buffeting the group, which was founded in 2015 by a band of rebel conservatives who wanted to push Republican leaders to the right on fiscal and social issues.

These days, the group is larger and harder to organize, in part because its members are, by nature, not rule followers. Some complain that when the group takes an official position, they do so on a messaging app, Telegram, and don’t take votes in person. Mr. Perry has at times vented privately that he has little control over his own caucus. And Republicans aligned with the group have grumbled behind closed doors that the quality of the members has diminished over time.

At the same time, some of the most vocal hard-right voices in the House who have sought to thwart Mr. McCarthy’s rise and his agenda, like Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, have never been members.

Mr. Gaetz, however, has emerged as a charter member of the Twenty, a group of 20 populist members that has in recent months become the more disruptive threat to Mr. McCarthy’s control of the House. The smaller group views itself as a more efficient fighting force. It does not take votes to establish official positions; its members just go out and disrupt, as they did in June when they staged a blockade on the House floor to protest Mr. McCarthy’s debt limit deal with President Biden.

As Spending Fights Loom, Freedom Caucus Is at a Crossroads

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

By Annie Karni, Robert Draper and Luke Broadwater

July 25, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/25/us/politics/majorie-taylor-green-freedom-caucus

[Excerpts:]

The expulsion of Ms. Greene, perhaps the most famous hard-right rabble-rouser in Congress, from the group that has long styled itself as the rebellious voice of the extreme right in the House reflects something of an identity crisis within the Freedom Caucus even as a slim G.O.P. majority has given the group more power than ever.

As the Republican Party has moved further to the right, the fringe has become the mainstream, swelling the ranks of the Freedom Caucus but making it difficult for the group to stay aligned on policy and strategy. The rise of another hard-right faction in the House calling itself “the Twenty” — including some members of the caucus and some who have long refused to join — has raised questions in recent months about where the real power lies on the far right.

Still, Ms. Greene in some ways personifies the forces buffeting the group, which was founded in 2015 by a band of rebel conservatives who wanted to push Republican leaders to the right on fiscal and social issues.

These days, the group is larger and harder to organize, in part because its members are, by nature, not rule followers. Some complain that when the group takes an official position, they do so on a messaging app, Telegram, and don’t take votes in person. Mr. Perry has at times vented privately that he has little control over his own caucus. And Republicans aligned with the group have grumbled behind closed doors that the quality of the members has diminished over time.

At the same time, some of the most vocal hard-right voices in the House who have sought to thwart Mr. McCarthy’s rise and his agenda, like Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, have never been members.

Mr. Gaetz, however, has emerged as a charter member of the Twenty, a group of 20 populist members that has in recent months become the more disruptive threat to Mr. McCarthy’s control of the House. The smaller group views itself as a more efficient fighting force. It does not take votes to establish official positions; its members just go out and disrupt, as they did in June when they staged a blockade on the House floor to protest Mr. McCarthy’s debt limit deal with President Biden.

 

Jim Jordan Pushes Bogus Hank Aaron Vaccine Conspiracy During RFK Jr. Hearing

The GOP lawmaker insisted that Kennedy was “just pointing out facts” when the anti-vaccine conspiracist suggested the baseball icon died from the COVID-19 shot.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/jim-jordan-pushes-bogus-hank-aaron-vaccine-conspiracy-during-rfk-jr-hearing

 

House GOP flirts with Jan. 6 extremism

By JORDAIN CARNEY and KYLE CHENEY

Updated: 06/18/2023 

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/18/house-gop-jan-6-extremism-00101259

Far-right conservatives have entertained false conspiracy theories about the Capitol attack — but so have some House GOP leaders and key committee chiefs, without outright embracing them.

House Republicans don’t want to talk about Jan. 6. They also can’t stop talking about it.

At times, GOP lawmakers insist they’re uninterested in relitigating an attack that is political poison for the party outside of deep-red areas. But at other times, some Republicans have stoked narratives that falsely pin blame for the attack on police, Democrats or far-left agitators — or downplay the violence at the Capitol. The latter approach has seen a noticeable uptick of late.

And it’s not just far-right conservatives who fall in that group — some House GOP leaders and key committee chiefs have shown they’re willing to flirt with the fringe without an outright embrace. Speaker Kevin McCarthy has shared security video of that day with far-right media figures who have minimized or fed inaccurate portrayals of the attack.

Yet they’re also batting down some of those same false conspiracy theories and preparing to focus on at least one area of bipartisan concern: Capitol security vulnerabilities, many of which remain unresolved since the attack. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), who faced scrutiny from the Jan. 6 select committee for a Capitol complex tour he gave on Jan. 5, 2021, is warning allies against automatically accepting certain claims.

“You wouldn’t believe how many experts there are out there on Jan. 6, who know exactly what happened because they read it on the internet,” said Loudermilk, who is leading the GOP’s look back at the attack and at the Democratic-led Jan. 6 panel.

Loudermilk’s comments underscore House Republicans’ reality. While most admit privately, if not publicly, that Jan. 6 was the work of a violent mob, they have a political calculus to consider: A not-insignificant faction of their party is hellbent on rewriting the history of the day.

Hanging over it all is former President Donald Trump’s vociferous defense of the rioters and continued false claims that he won the 2020 election. Federal and Georgia prosecutors are investigating his efforts to subvert the election and could bring charges later this year.

Trump is uninterested in making the balance any easier on Republicans: His pledge to pardon a large number of Jan. 6 defendants is a feature of his commentary on the campaign trail, where he remains the frontrunner for the party’s 2024 nomination.

Still, House Republicans aren’t fully playing to Trump. For now, they’re giving Jan. 6 a side hug more than a bear hug.

McCarthy encapsulates the half-hearted embrace. He angered some allies on the right this year by defending a Capitol Police officer’s decision to shoot a Jan. 6 rioter who was attempting to breach a room adjacent to the House chamber. But he’s also provided exclusive access to thousands of hours of security footage to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who’s used the film to demean and distort police officers’ actions.

“Speaker McCarthy promised that House Republicans would investigate the security failures of that day and provide transparency to the American people. Former Speaker Pelosi and her Select Committee set one bad precedent after another — including releasing select clips for partisan purposes,” a McCarthy spokesperson said in a statement that did not address conference dynamics around Jan. 6.

“For two years, we heard no concerns when footage was used by Democrats, the media, and Pelosi’s daughter for her HBO documentary,” the McCarthy spokesperson added, declining to be identified by name and referring to Nancy Pelosi’s daughter filming her mother and other party leaders on Jan. 6.

Some of McCarthy’s most trusted committee chairs have taken a similar approach to the California Republican, eschewing the most extreme efforts demanded by the far-right flank but still winking at some of their concerns.

For example, no committees have pursued baseless claims that Ray Epps, who rioted on Jan. 6, was acting as an undercover government agent. And GOP leaders have sidestepped a far-right fervor to subpoena and probe Jan. 6 select panel members, to scrutinize distorted allegations about Pelosi’s handling of Capitol security or to dig into judges’ treatment of the 1,000-plus criminal cases stemming from the attack.

Notably, no committee chairs or party leaders participated in the biggest platform House Republicans have given Jan. 6 defendants so far: Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), joined by a handful of others from the conference’s right flank, hosted an event last week with former Trump acting assistant attorney general Jeffrey Clark, people charged in relation to Jan. 6, defendants’ family members and allies.

The event featured a veritable kitchen sink of conspiracy theories as well as rehashed false claims, including that the 2020 election was “stolen” and that the Jan. 6 committee “doctored” video.

But Jan. 6 defendants, their advocates and some GOP lawmakers have called for Republicans to push further.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said that probing the Justice Department’s handling of Jan. 6 prosecutions should be one of the “top priorities” for a Judiciary sub-panel tasked with investigating GOP claims of bias against conservatives within the federal government.

She introduced impeachment articles against the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia who has taken the lead on prosecuting members of the mob. Meanwhile, Gaetz introduced a resolution to censure Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who led the now-closed riot select committee. Both efforts have a single-digit number of cosponsors at the moment.

Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) did recently release a wider report that accused the FBI of artificially conflating the number of Jan. 6-related investigations. The report and a subsequent hearing also included testimony from whistleblowers who lost their security clearances due to improper actions related to Jan. 6.

One of the whistleblowers, Steve Friend, and several Freedom Caucus members were invited to speak at a retreat hosted by the conservative Center for Renewing America, where Friend is a senior fellow, shortly before the hearing, according to research by the progressive group Accountable.US that was provided exclusively to POLITICO and confirmed via House disclosure forms.

Jordan also fired off new Jan. 6-related letters, one asking for more information on the FBI’s investigation into pipe bombs found near the Capitol the day of the attack and another expanding a probe into record-sharing with federal investigators.

But those efforts make up a small slice of his collective, sweeping investigations.

The Oversight Committee organized a tour of the D.C. jail to investigate two-year-old claims of “disparate treatment” of the approximately two dozen Jan. 6-related detainees — nearly all of whom were incarcerated or detained for violence against police. But Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) didn’t attend the tour, which was led by panel member Greene.

Democrats who attended said that GOP lawmakers and the detained rioters treated each other as allies and friends.

Some members of the Oversight panel recently raised Jan. 6 during a hearing with testimony from Graves and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser — but the session was billed as about broader crime and governance issues.

There’s a reason behind the conference’s actions to sidestep those issues: A broad swath of House Republicans see spotlighting Jan. 6-related investigations as a terrible political strategy.

Loudermilk has largely conducted the GOP’s most focused dive into Jan. 6 so far. He received a copy of the Capitol Police’s radio transmissions from the day and met privately with former law enforcement officials to discuss security failures. Loudermilk’s sub-panel, according to the McCarthy spokesperson, will also soon be rolling out “additional access” to view Capitol security footage.

Still, Loudermilk set off alarm bells among Democrats when he pushed the D.C. police to disclose how many undercover officers were in the crowd during the attack. The letter dovetails with, but did not specifically mention, claims by some Jan. 6 defendants that plainclothes agents or the government itself might have fomented the riot.

But Loudermilk says he won’t lend his subcommittee’s imprimatur to some of the most egregious false claims.

“We want to just follow the facts, not hyperbole or some kind of conspiracy theory, so our interest is just: What is the truth?” he said.

[Boldface added]

 

Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson

May 16, 2023

[Excerpt:]

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/

David Kurtz

TPM Morning Memo

May 18, 2023

Jim Jordan’s sham “weaponization” committee was dealt a blow when the FBI revoked the security clearances of three agents “who either took part in the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, or later expressed views about it that placed into question their ‘allegiance to the United States,’” the NYT reports.

Two (Marcus Allen and Stephen Friend) of the three agents are set to testify in Jordan’s circus ring today as among the so-called “whistleblowers” that House GOPers have been touting for months. Allen, Friend, and Brett Gloss have all been suspended by the FBI.

The details of each agent’s actions on and around Jan. 6 or in subsequent investigations are almost hilariously bad – were it not all so serious. How serious?

 

G.O.P. Witnesses, Paid by Trump Ally, Embraced Jan. 6 Conspiracy Theories

Axios Sneak PeakHans Nichols and Zachary Basu

March 3, 2023

1 Big Thing: Jordan under Fire

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) — facing criticism that his probe of “weaponized” U.S. agencies has moved too slowly and found little — is threatening to subpoena 16 more witnesses from the FBI, Axios’ Sophia Cai reports.

Why it matters: Jordan is under increasing pressure from disappointed Republicans who want results — and from Democrats who say his investigation is being exposed as a partisan sham.

Driving the news: Criticism of Jordan escalated over the weekend, after the New York Times reported that three witnesses Jordan had cast as FBI “whistleblowers” provided little information and had touted various conspiracy theories. Two had received financial help from an ally of former President Trump.

• In another sign he is doubling down, Jordan today issued three subpoenas for testimony connected to the Department of Homeland Security’s defunct “disinformation board” and the Justice Department’s investigation into school board threats.

Between the lines: Critics say Jordan has been hampered by his off-the-cuff style, lack of structure and separation between Judiciary and its “weaponization” subcommittee — and a tendency to make statements first and hope his investigative work will back them up.

• By choosing to lead both Judiciary and its weaponization panel, Jordan forced his small circle of five close advisers to work on at least a dozen probes simultaneously, according to an Axios analysis of oversight requests sent by Jordan this Congress.

What they’re saying: “Jordan is overextended and short-staffed, biting off much more than he can chew,” Mike Davis, former chief counsel for nominations for then-Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), wrote in a tweet thread. “This is doomed to fail.”

• On his show, Fox News’ Jesse Watters said: “Make me feel better, guys. Tell me this is going somewhere. Can I throw someone in prison? Can someone go to jail? Can someone get fined?”

Zoom in: Jordan last week requested more resources for the Judiciary Committee and the weaponization panel — an apparent acknowledgement that he’s understaffed.

• The Republican firebrand is asking for an additional $2 million a year and access to a “substantial reserve fund” of $15 million to conduct investigations.

What we’re watching: Jordan’s oversight strategy hinges largely on his ability to produce whistleblowers who bring evidence of bias by federal law enforcement.

• He opened the weaponization panel’s first hearing by saying he would seek testimony from “dozens and dozens” of whistleblowers who had information about “the political nature at the Justice Department.”
• Everyone — Republicans, Democrats and others — is still waiting.

Share this story.

 

 

Democrats said a trio of witnesses billed as “whistle-blowers” provided no evidence of wrongdoing, espoused false claims about the Capitol riot and were compensated by an ally of former President Donald J. Trump.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/02/us/politics/house-weaponization-committee-jan-6

[Excerpts:]

WASHINGTON — House Republicans have spent months promising to use their majority to uncover an insidious bias against conservatives on the part of the federal government, vowing to produce a roster of brave whistle-blowers who would come forward to provide damning evidence of abuses aimed at the right.

But the first three witnesses to testify privately before the new Republican-led House committee investigating the “weaponization” of the federal government have offered little firsthand knowledge of any wrongdoing or violation of the law, according to Democrats on the panel who have listened to their accounts. Instead, the trio appears to be a group of aggrieved former F.B.I. officials who have trafficked in right-wing conspiracy theories, including about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol, and received financial support from a top ally of former President Donald J. Trump.

The roster of witnesses, whose interviews and statements are detailed in a 316-page report compiled by Democrats that was obtained by The New York Times, suggests that Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the chairman of the panel, has so far relied on people who do not meet the definition of a whistle-blower and who have engaged in partisan conduct that calls into question their credibility. And it raises questions about whether Republicans, who have said that investigating the Biden administration is a top goal, will be able to deliver on their ambitious plans to uncover misdeeds at the highest levels.

“Each endorses an alarming series of conspiracy theories related to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, the Covid vaccine, and the validity of the 2020 election,” Democrats wrote in the heavily footnoted report, which cites scores of statements made by the witnesses. “One has called repeatedly for the dismantling of the F.B.I. Another suggested that it would be better for Americans to die than to have any kind of domestic intelligence program.”

 

Letters from an American

Heather Cox Richardson

January 21, 2023 

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/

Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) has celebrated his elevation to the chair of the House Judiciary Committee with a flurry of requests to the Department of Justice for information about the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the investigation of the events of January 6, 2021, in which Jordan himself was implicated.

But a response today from the DOJ reminded Jordan that the department could not share information about ongoing investigations and that it would need clear information about what, exactly, he hoped to investigate rather than blanket demands. Then Assistant Attorney General Carlos Uriarte assured him that the department “stands ready to provide expertise as the Committee considers potential legislation,” an apparent suggestion that Jordan recall what his constituents elected him to do. 

“The Administration’s stonewalling must stop,” Jordan tweeted after receiving the letter, but it is notable that Jordan himself refused to answer a subpoena from the bipartisan House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol. McCarthy ignored one too. 

Mark Meadows Exchanged Texts With 34 Members Of Congress About Plans To Overturn The 2020 Election

The Messages Included Battle Cries, Crackpot Legal Theories, And ‘Invoking Marshall Law!!’

[Excerpts:]

When it comes to the House, FiveThirtyEight has found that so far, at minimum 117 House Republicans with at least a 95 percent chance of winning are full-blown election deniers or questioners, a good leading indicator of radicalism and a willingness to ignore facts and embrace fantasy. In turn, they are willing, if not eager, to blow up institutions and government itself to accomplish their goals.

The current members of the Freedom Caucus make up barely a fifth of all House Republicans, but they represent a rogues’ gallery of bombastic pot stirrers and insurrectionist enablers—people such as Scott Perry, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Louie Gohmert, and Mo Brooks. In the 118th Congress, they will make up more of their party in the House. Their goals include impeaching Joe Biden, Merrick Garland, Alejandro Mayorkas, and more; investigating Hunter Biden, Anthony Fauci, and others; but also crippling the FBI and blocking further investigation or prosecution of Trump and his allies, stopping all future Biden policies, and likely fighting for a nationwide ban on abortions, repeal of the Affordable Care Act, tough immigration policies, and more. [Boldface added]

We have moved into a new and frightening era in American politics and governance, one when radicals intent on a revolution and craving major disruption will be not just a vocal minority but potentially dominating a governing body. We cannot risk the full consequences of that brutal reality.

 

MCCARTHY’S MATH

Politico

Oct. 7, 2022

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly/2022/10/06/misunderstanding-kevin-mccarthy

[Excerpt:]

Yet even beyond that portrait of McCarthy as an intellectual lightweight, critics say he’s failed in his own efforts to clear his conference of conservative gadflies who could prove ungovernable in a future majority. A recent Bulwark column made a compelling case that McCarthy’s been ineffective at evicting “the looniest of the loonies in the party” from his ranks.

But like it or not — and his critics don’t have to — McCarthy’s never styled himself as an arbiter of responsible conservatism, out to smooth out the Trumpiest elements of the GOP. And he’s rarely hinted that he finds the more bumptious members on his right flank to be real problems, aside from ousted Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.).

Part of that may stem from the reality of the modern Freedom Caucus, as POLITICO’s Olivia Beavers has catalogued : The hard-line group is now less formally conservative than a vehicle for Trumpism, and its members are increasingly less unified around the set of policy goals that sparked their loudest pushback against McCarthy’s predecessors.

The Freedom Caucus’ most influential member, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), is now a McCarthy ally about to take the Judiciary Committee gavel. Its members aren’t even planning right now to back a formal challenger to McCarthy in next year’s speaker vote. [Boldface added]

So when McCarthy goes about picking horses in GOP primaries, he’s not trying to dislodge all problematic conservatives from his conference at all — he’s trying to lock in the majority he needs on the floor next year to claim the House’s top gavel.

And on that score, he’s doing pretty well. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), perhaps the most divisive member of his conference, lauded McCarthy’s “Commitment to America” agenda before it even came out.

 

Freedom Caucus frets over how far to push its rebellion

A split has emerged inside the House Freedom Caucus over its members’ use of delaying tactics on the floor to protest Democratic policies.

By OLIVIA BEAVERS and MELANIE ZANONA

03/30/2021 04:30 AM EDT [Excepts from full article]

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/30/freedom-caucus-cracks-478429

A notable split has emerged inside the House Freedom Caucus in recent weeks over its members’ use of delaying tactics on the floor to protest Democratic policies. That effort has grabbed attention and ruffled leadership, two hallmarks of the Freedom Caucus, but it’s also snarled legislative proceedings enough to breed frustration among some members of the far-right crew.

Initially formed as a hard-right irritant to GOP leadership, the Freedom Caucus later became a club for Donald Trump’s most loyal supporters. In the post-Trump era, the group will face its own questions about its broader direction, especially as it gears up to elect a new leader this fall. Biggs will be term-limited by the end of this year and is also considering an Arizona Senate bid.

 Even the group’s co-founder and most high-profile member, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), has noticeably steered clear of recent public antics by members. Jordan stayed silent when a cohort of Freedom Caucus members opposed a bill honoring the Capitol Police for protecting the building during the riot and when other members accused two Asian American lawmakers of being “racist” for demanding more representation in Biden’s Cabinet.

 Some foresee a potential schism in which Freedom Caucus rebels, such as Biggs and Greene, continue to throw bombs in an effort to torment leaders. Biggs recently clashed with McCarthy behind closed doors over his procedural gambits, suggesting the Arizona Republican has little interest in following leadership’s direction.

There’s some real concern among the Freedom Caucus that it lacks a long-term vision,” said a senior GOP aide with knowledge of the caucus politics. “There doesn’t seem to be an organized legislative plan or agenda — only sporadic press conferences and news releases. It could be argued that this … has divided the caucus more than ever before.”

 

Letters from an American

July 29, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

Jul 30

Brooks is not the only one in danger of receiving a subpoena. Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) admitted on the Fox News Channel that he spoke to the former president on January 6, although he claimed not to remember whether it was before, during, or after the insurrection. He tried to suggest that chatting with Trump on January 6 was no different than chatting with him at any other time, but that is unlikely to fly. Jordan also repeatedly referred to Trump as “the president,” rather than the former president, a dog whistle to those who continue to insist that Trump did not, in fact, lose the 2020 election. 

 

Meadows comes under growing Jan. 6 panel spotlight

 

Fact-checking Jim Jordan’s letter to the Jan. 6 committee

by Tara Subramaniam

January 12, 2022

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/12/politics/jordan-jan-6-letter-fact-check/index.html

In a letter sent Sunday responding to a request to meet with the House select committee investigating January 6, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio accused the investigation of spreading misinformation “to paint a false and misleading narrative.”

As part of its effort to examine the role former President Donald Trump and his allies played in the insurrection, the committee has already interviewed more than 300 witnesses but its interview requests to Jordan and other major allies of former President Donald Trump represent a significant step in the investigation.

When asked on Monday, Jordan declined to say explicitly that he would not cooperate with the committee but emphasized that “The letter speaks for itself. You read the letter. We put the reasons in there, we put the statements in there that we did because we felt that were important to say.”

Here are the facts around some of the statements and assertions in Jordan’s four-page letter.

Jordan’s relevancy

Jordan indicated he doesn’t plan to cooperate with the committee’s request because he has “no relevant information that would assist the Select Committee.”

Facts First: Though Jordan might not believe he has relevant information, what matters is that the Select Committee does. Committee Chair Bennie Thompson requested Jordan’s cooperation on the basis that he “had at least one and possibly multiple communications with President Trump on January 6th.” A January 6 select committee spokesperson said in response to Jordan’s letter that due to these communications he does have information the committee is seeking and is a “material witness.”

It’s worth noting that Jordan is a long-term Trump ally who objected to the certification of the November 2020 election in the House on January 6. In December 2020, Jordan attended meetings at the White House with Trump, then-Vice President Mike Pence, and a handful of other congressional Republicans to discuss how to overturn the election results. Ultimately, Jordan voted to overturn the results in the two states where Republicans’ objections made it to a vote — Arizona and Pennsylvania.

Republican members

Attempts to establish a bipartisan committee to investigate the January 6 attack have been plagued by partisan conflict since the start. Even after both sides agreed to a structure for the panel, tensions emerged around who should sit on it.

Jordan claimed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “failed to consult with Leader McCarthy about the appointment of Republican members,” thereby violating a requirement outlined in the resolution establishing the select committee.

Facts First: This is misleading. McCarthy initially selected five GOP members to serve on the committee. Pelosi rejected two, Jordan and Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, but accepted the other three. However, McCarthy pulled all five members in response to Pelosi’s rejection. Pelosi then selected Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger to represent the GOP on the panel.

This is not a new line of attack from Republicans against the committee. In response to lawsuits trying to argue the committee’s subpoenas are invalid because of how the members were chosen, Charles Tiefer, a legislative professor at University of Baltimore School of Law and a former House deputy general counsel, said in December 2021 that, “As far as the resolution creating the committee, it only promised ‘consultation’ with the minority. It did not promise the minority particular membership.”

Texts to Meadows

In December 2021, the House select committee released new text messages obtained from former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that were sent to him in the days leading up to the insurrection and while the Capitol was under siege.

During a meeting to consider whether to hold Meadows in criminal contempt of Congress, committee member Rep. Adam Schiff read from a graphic which included a portion of a text sent to Meadows from an “unnamed lawmaker.”

According to Jordan, Schiff “doctored” a text message Jordan had “forwarded” to Meadows which was among those released.

Facts First: It’s misleading for Jordan to suggest Schiff “doctored” the text. While the text Schiff read was not the entirety of what Jordan sent Meadows, every word he said was included in Jordan’s message. A committee source told CNN an aide inadvertently placed a period before the end of a sentence in the graphic that was not in the original text. The rest of the text, which was not read aloud by Schiff or shown during the meeting, outlined a legal justification for why Pence could prevent the certification of the 2020 election which was initially sent to Jordan from Joseph Schmitz, a former Department of Defense inspector general.

Days after the portion of the text was shared by Schiff, a spokesperson for Jordan confirmed that the congressman had sent it to Meadows on January 5 but that it was part of a longer message Jordan had forwarded from Schmitz.

“Mr. Jordan forwarded the text to Mr. Meadows, and Mr. Meadows certainly knew it was a forward,” Russell Dye, a spokesperson for Jordan, confirmed to CNN.

The text as shown on the graphic read: ‘On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as President of the Senate, should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all.”

Three sources told CNN the full message was: “On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as President of the Senate, should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all — in accordance with guidance from founding father Alexander Hamilton and judicial precedence. ‘No legislative act,’ wrote Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 78, ‘contrary to the Constitution, can be valid.’ The court in Hubbard v. Lowe reinforced this truth: ‘That an unconstitutional statute is not a law at all is a proposition no longer open to discussion.’ 226 F. 135, 137 (SDNY 1915), appeal dismissed, 242 U.S. 654 (1916). Following this rationale, an unconstitutionally appointed elector, like an unconstitutionally enacted statute, is no elector at all.”

Gag orders

The House select committee has asked phone companies for records including subscriber information and call logs but not the content of individual communications.

In his letter, Jordan claimed the committee “has abused fundamental civil liberties” by “seeking to impose gag orders on telecom and email companies to prevent them from notifying their customers that the Select Committee has demanded their data.”

Facts First: This is misleading at best. It’s possible Jordan’s claim is based on the fact that the committee at one point asked Verizon to contact them if the company could not respond to requests without alerting the specific subscriber or account. However, after the committee issued its latest round of phone record subpoenas, Verizon did inform its customers they would need to file in court by January 5 if they wanted to try to block the panel from getting the records, according to some of the filings.

Bernard Kerik

Jordan said the committee “falsely accused former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik of attending a meeting in Washington on January 5, 2021, when Kerik was actually in New York City.”

Facts First: Jordan rightly points out that the committee wrongly suggested that Kerik attended the January 5 meeting. In an email to CNN Thursday evening, Kerik’s lawyer said that during Kerik’s Thursday interview with the January 6 committee, he confirmed to the committee that he did not participate in the January 5 meeting, either in person or remotely.

CNN’s initial fact-check of this claim by Jordan, published on January 11, said it was unclear whether Kerik was physically present at the January 5 meeting in Washington, but noted that he did play a role in helping organize the election-related command center for Trump advisers in DC ahead of January 6.

That assessment was made based on the committee’s November subpoena to Kerik, which said that he “reportedly participated” in a January 5 meeting at the Willard Hotel in Washington in which Trump advisers discussed options for overturning the election results.

After this fact check was published, Kerik’s lawyer noted to CNN that the committee had changed its stance on whether Kerik participated in the January 5 meeting at the Willard.

The committee then referred CNN to its updated press release announcing the subpoena. The updated press release detailing Kerik’s subpoena removed mention of a specific January 5 meeting and said more broadly that “Kerik was reportedly involved with meetings at the Willard Hotel in Washington.” It’s unclear when the press release was updated.

The language of the November subpoena to Kerik remains unchanged and still mentions his participation in the January 5 meeting.

Even if Kerik was absent for that particular meeting, that does not absolve him of the committee’s wider claims that he played a role in helping organize the election-related command center for Trump advisers in DC ahead of January 6.

In its request to Kerik, the committee mentioned public records which show Kerik “paid for rooms and suites in Washington, DC, hotels that served as election-related command centers” and cited a Washington Post articlewhich names Kerik as an investigator for the effort to reinstate Trump.

While the article does not specify whether Kerik attended the January 5 meeting, Kerik confirmed to CNN that most of the Post’s story was accurate.

Kerik also told CNN that he and others on the legal team were focused on investigating election fraud starting on November 5 and that’s what they were doing at the Willard.

“Moving into the Willard had nothing to do with January 6,” Kerik said.

Correction: This story has been updated to correct the assessment of Jordan’s claim and reflect additional information from Kerik’s lawyer.

 

New details show extent of GOP effort to unwind Trump’s loss

BY REBECCA BEITSCH

04/27/22