Conservative Republican lawmaker Jim Jordan isn’t bowing down to pressure from Nancy Pelosi’s illegitimate inquisition. The one sided panel overseeing a left-leaning probe into the events of January 6, 2021, named him in a subpoena. The Ohio based patriot didn’t tell the Democrats to fold their bogus subpoena until it was all corners, then put it where it would give them the most pleasure. Instead, he wants them to prove they have the authority to demand his cooperation.
Jim Jordan fights back
Ohio lawmaker Jim Jordan isn’t about to cave in, just because some silly committee sends a piece of paper around to his office by special messenger. His position on the issue is that the House select committee doesn’t have the Constitutional authority to do squat.
He also has a laundry list of demands that Democrats must comply with before he’ll even consider talking to them.
CNN got their sticky fingers on a copy of the letter Jordan sent back to Pelosi’s hand picked committee. In it, the lawmaker asks politely for “the committee to provide him with all of the materials it plans on using to question him.”
They have to cough them up with enough opportunity to have the lawyers comb through looking for land mines. They also need to cough up each and every document they plan to use at any proposed deposition.
Most importantly, Jordan wants to know what the heck gives them the right to ask for his cooperation in the first place. He demands “an explanation of the legal authority upon which the committee relied in issuing a subpoena.”
He has more than one good point. “I write to strongly contest the constitutionality and validity of the subpoena in several respects.”
One of five targeted
Jordan is only one of five House members, all Republican, to get a subpoena from the committee. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy got one just like it.
So did Andy Biggs of Arizona, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Mo Brooks of Alabama. All of them have dates set within the next two weeks. The panel members may want to reconsider their strategy.
Jordan told the panel they have a lot of nerve to short notice his deposition. He reminded them that they never got back to him when he wrote a letter in January, “outlining his concerns when the panel wanted to speak with him voluntarily.” They lied, he notes, when they told him he’d get a response in “the coming days.”
He’s been counting them ever since. “Rather than engaging in good faith about the serious issues I raised on January 9, you abandoned the matter for 123 days, only to abruptly reengage two weeks ago with a sudden and drastic escalation.” Stick it.
Besides that, he reminded, they “have not explained the Constitutional basis for the extraordinary claim that a congressional committee may compel the testimony of other Members of Congress.” Jordan calls their subpoena “a dangerous escalation of House Democrats’ pursuit of political vendettas.” They wouldn’t know the truth if it strangled them.
“Public statements by members of the Select Committee indicate that it seeks to use its subpoena authority for improper motives and for the self-aggrandizement of its members.” This time, it’s not going to work. Besides that, he really has nothing to say. The paper they sent him “is not constitutional or valid” because he claims he has “no relevant” information that “would advance the committee’s investigation.“
