Jim Jordan sure likes to humiliate himself. He regularly tweets nonsense that only gets him dragged. He throws hissy fits during hearings he doesn’t like. He even does it on the floor of the House of Representatives. He did so again on Tuesday, when he tried to defend Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff who the Jan. 6 committee — which almost featured Jordan, improbably — voted to hold him in contempt of Congress. His rant was plagued with falsehoods, and one of his fellow Republicans made sure to patiently call him out on his BS.
After taking the podium, Jordan laid into Democrats, accusing them of preventing Republicans of serving on the Jan. 6 committee, as well as trying to end the filibuster, make D.C. a state, and “pack the courts.” (All three of those things they haven’t been able to do, thanks in part to…other Democrats.) He also claimed they were trying to “destroy executive privilege,” the excuse Trump and his cronies have been erroneously leaning on, even though it only protects sitting presidents.
And he wept some tears for Mark Meadows, “my friend.” He claimed it was “as wrong as it gets” to hold him in contempt, and that the real reason for doing was his colleagues’ “lust for power, your lust to get your opponent is so intense you don’t care.”
It was classic Jordan, an avalanche of factually dubious claims and spittle. And Liz Cheney wasn’t having it.
The longtime Republican, who was demoted from certain key positions by her own colleagues (including Jim Jordan) after she refused to parrot Trump’s voter fraud lies, patiently dismantled Jordan’s nonsense.
Cheney stood up to address “some of the charges that my colleague from Ohio just made, which are flat false.” She then went through them one by one. She pointed out that Meadows refused to show up for a deposition on a day that he himself chose. She also pointed out that he “refused to show up to address non-privileged questions,” i.e., matters that fall outside what anyone would claim as protected by “executive privilege.”
“So my colleague from Ohio can talk as much as he’d like about executive privilege, about George Washington and the extent of which it’s crucial for the survival of the Republic, with which I agree,” Cheney allowed. “But we are talking about testimony about non-privileged material.”
Cheney also pointed out that there was once upon a time that “we all on this side of the aisle used to be in agreement about what had happened on Jan. 6.” She read aloud a statement Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy made on Jan. 13, a week after the Capitol siege, in which he directly blamed Trump for the riot and said he should have put the kibosh on it immediately, which he did not.
“Unfortunately, Mr. McCarthy’s position changed on this issue,” Cheney said. “Mr. McCarthy then worked against, voted against the resolution that would have created a bipartisan commission to investigate these matters. And he withdrew his nominees to this committee. Let me say it again: He withdrew his nominees to this committee.”
She concluded by saying, “This committee is engaged in critical investigative and legislative activity, for which there is no greater purpose in terms of Congress’ responsibility — no matter what my colleague on the other side may claim in terms of Mr. Meadows.”
In any case, perhaps Jordan’s meltdown over Meadows maybe going to a jail was mere projection. After all, the committee may be calling him up sometime soon.
