The key player in the GOP agenda is Jim Jordan
The Breach: The Untold Story of the Investigation into January 6th: Donald Trump and his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election
Donald Trump and his efforts to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election were detailed in the hearings of the House select committee. We knew for a long time that Mr. Trump and his allies had engaged in an assault on democracy as well as on Congress.
Armed with new witness interviews and unreleased footage of the violence of Jan. 6, 2021, the panel is planning to argue that Mr. Trump’s lies about widespread voter fraud inspired far-right extremists and election deniers who present a continuing threat to American democracy.
Donald Trump has been the center of America’s political universe ever since he descended the escalator to Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World”. But at least one former congressman believes the continued fixation on the 45th president is now a distraction. He’s only part of the story, especially now that Trumpism has grown larger than Trump himself.
The US has entered an era in political warfare according to the former Republican congressman. Until this spring, he served as a senior advisor to the January 6 committee, which he recounts in his new book, The Breach: The Untold Story of the Investigation into January 6th. A former Air Force intelligence officer, Riggleman founded a data mining and analysis company before being elected to the House. The special panel had hundreds of interviews to conduct, but they have been ignored.
The conservative who left the Republican Party to marry a woman was given a budget of $3.2 million for his digital sleuthing but he says he was allocated a fraction of that.
Still, he was granted a rare, behind-the-scenes glimpse into not just the January 6 attack. He believes MarkMeadows was the central player in the insurrection. The special committee was given 2,319 text messages from the election to Biden which they say shows how deep the conspiracy is in the Republican Party.
Jordan has a long list of inquiries which include border security, education policies during the pandemic and an alleged bias by the FBI. He’ll also lead a new subcommittee that will look into what the Ohio Republican calls “the weaponization” of the federal government.
When Jordan arrived on Capitol Hill in 2007, he zeroed in on his quest to shrink the federal government as a member of the House Budget Committee. In one of his early floor speeches he stressed he was new to Washington, but said, “I’ve already learned the game is called spend at every opportunity.”
He was elected to chair the Republican Study Committee in 2010 due to his zeal to rein in federal spending. He made it very clear in his post that he was a check on his party.
“I like to tell people that we’re the conservative conscience for Republicans in the nation’s Capitol.” And our job is to make Republicans act like Republicans,” Jordan said in an interview on C-SPAN in 2010.
He wasn’t afraid to confront his own leaders. The GOP lawmaker helped found the House Freedom Caucus in 2015. The battles that the group waged contributed to JohnBoehner stepping down later that year.
Often seen in his signature rolled-up shirtsleeves and no suit jacket, Jordan had an aggressive posture at marquee hearings like the one on the IRS targeting political groups in 2014 and the 2015 hearing questioning former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton following the attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya. Jordan was one of the President Donald Trump’s fiercest defenders during his first impeachment when he was in office.
McCarthy was elected the speaker on Jan. 7 after more than four days of voting. He has provided Jordan with a huge platform as a key architect of GOP probes into the Biden administration.
Kevin McCarthy is the right person to lead us, according to Jordan. I do. I wouldn’t be standing there giving a speech. Kevin and I came in together. We came in the same time 16 years ago. We did not always agree on everything. But I like his fight. I like his tenacity.”
During the trial of the Senate, Jordan argued that Trump had been treated unfairly. “Democrats have never got over the fact that this new guy has never been in this town, never been in politics, this new guy came in here and is shaking this place up and that drives them crazy.”
When Mick Mulvaney was hired by Trump to be White House chief of staff he said one of his friends was Jordan, who was a founding member of the Freedom Caucus.
“You never know when the light is going to shine on you and you have to be ready and I think Jim was. I thought that Jim did a great job on the impeachment. Mulvaney told NPR that he was always on the ball and talked to him frequently.
I would describe Jim as an investigative investigator, not a legislator, because he is interested in transparency and accountability. Jim would be not happy with the Financial Services Committee. I don’t think he’d be happy on appropriations. The man has been appointed to run the Judiciary Committee.
Texas Republican Chip Roy is a member of that panel and he says Jordan is the best person to lead that new effort. “I don’t know anybody in town who is better prepared than Jim Jordan to go after the bureaucrats over in the executive branch and to bring a light to the weaponization of government against the American people. He’ll do a great job of it,” Roy told NPR recently.
The Republican-controlled House Judiciary and Oversight committees held hearings on Biden’s policies, as well as the handling of the allegations surrounding Hunter Biden’s laptop. GOP lawmakers, led by Jordan and Oversight Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., also intend to investigate the military withdrawal from Afghanistan, and whether Biden engaged in what they have called “influence peddling” while serving as vice president.
But Mulvaney warns impeachment has become a political tool and should be preserved for instances when there is solid evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors. “I hope that the Republicans will go back to that standard if they end up impeaching Biden. It’s better to be for a really good reason.
Ted Lieu is a member of the Judiciary Committee and told NPR he believes the new chairman has very extreme views. I also believe that he believes in those views so I respect that. Unlike Kevin McCarthy who I believe doesn’t actually believe in the things he says.”
“It’s going to be a challenge, there’s no question, because lawmakers have learned that being on the right committee can make them famous and they like that.”
The Joint Committee on the Oversight, Accountability, and Homeland Security: Watching the Biden Family and the Border Crisis with Subpoenas
One recent afternoon on his way to votes, House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., remarked that he and his counterpart on the House Judiciary panel, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, are spending a lot of time together these days.
The congressman from Kentucky said that they worked together and had breakfast together. He is familiar with what we’re doing. We know what he’s doing. Our staffs are close to each other. We work well together.
With the White House and Senate in Democratic hands, the hearings are part of a long laundry list the House GOP hopes to tackle this congressional session — a list that could also entail issuing subpoenas as part of their probes.
The Biden Border Crisis will be part of the Judiciary committee’s first meeting as it looks into concerns surrounding immigration and security at the United States/Mexico border.
Meanwhile, Comer says the Oversight panel’s first hearing will focus on spending tied to the pandemic relief bills, which he claims didn’t get enough scrutiny when Democrats controlled the House.
There are many reports of waste, fraud and abuse with respect to theStimulus funds, as well as PPE, loan fund, unemployment funds. “So we’re just going to roll our sleeves up and get started there.”
A panel led by Comer is investigating the Biden family’s business dealings. But Republicans have not uncovered new evidence backing up their claims of improper behavior.
Legislative oversight is the critical instrument for making sure that we are actually implementing our public laws and programs. And that’s what we should be doing,” said Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee.
Republicans, who won a narrow House majority in the midterm elections, campaigned on pledges to investigate Democrats. And House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has repeatedly emphasized his conference will take on oversight of the Bidens and various federal agencies.
“One thing that Congress has, we have a constitutional responsibility to oversee the Justice Department,” McCarthy said. “And that also means these … individuals investigating. We have the power to do that, and we will do it.
“We’ll issue the subpoenas and try to get the information, documents that we need,” Jordan recently told reporters. They give us the runaround if they give it to us. I guess I sort of expect that.”
For example, both Comer and Raskin agreed that there could be legislative fixes to avoid concerns in the future of mishandled classified documents by occupants of the White House, given the recent discoveries tied to former President Trump during his time in office and President Biden as vice president in the Obama administration.
“You know, I think that we all agree and Raskin has said this, too … that there needs to be reform,” Comer said. “So we’re trying to figure out how bad the problem is and we’re going to speak with the National Archives to figure it out.”
The First Hearing of the Oversight Subcommittee on “Weaponization of the Federal Government” by a Republican Majority
“Oversight is not about scandal mongering and sticking it to the other guys. He said that public oversight was about making sure that the government works for the people.
There is a new battle going on between House Republicans and Democrats in what is expected to be a long series of probes and hearings.
A new House panel investigating the “weaponization of the federal government” held its first hearing on Thursday, as part of the Republican majority’s push to ramp up scrutiny of the Biden administration.
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. It raises questions about whether Republicans will be able to deliver on their plans to uncover wrongdoing at the highest levels after they have investigated the Biden administration.
The panel said that Thursday’s hearing would be about the attacks on civil liberties by the FBI and DOJ. The witnesses were Republicans and the House Oversight Committee ranking member.
“I’m deeply concerned about the use of the select subcommittee as a place to settle scores, showcase conspiracy theories and advance an extreme agenda that risks undermining Americans’ faith in our democracy,” she said.
This is the fourth attempt to make good on that promise. The conservatives had been pushing for the formation of the panel in talks with Kevin McCarthy.
The subcommittee is expected to probe claims that the Department of Justice, FBI and other federal agencies are biased against conservatives. Republicans have voiced a long list of concerns, alleging the department mishandled allegations against former President Donald Trump, abused its surveillance powers and retaliated against parents who spoke out at school board meetings.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that 56 percent of Americans think that the subcommittee is just an attempt to score political points.
The House Republicans have been promising for months to use their majority to uncover a bias against conservatives on the part of the federal government.
According to Democrats on the committee who listened to their accounts, the first three witnesses who testified privately gave little idea of any wrongdoing or violation of the law. The trio appears to be a group of disgruntled former F.B.I. officials who have been peddling right-wing conspiracy theories,including about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol.
