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.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    That’s why he gets to be speaker. That’s what the Republicans want. A coup that puts them in charge for perpetuity.

    • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
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      Yes. This is what fascism looks like in its early stages.

      It will only get worse if we keep treating it as politics as usual. It is not.

      We’ve dealt with this shit before, and it’s only got this far because people aren’t learning from history. Fascism doesn’t go away if you ignore it.

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    This dude covered up sexual abuse. Don’t understand why this snake has a job to begin with. Any congressman that votes to make him speaker needs to be voted out.

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      Sometimes it really feels like being in a Twilight Zone episode when the party that’s frothing at the mouth over “pedophile elites” wants a guy who covered up sexual abuse as speaker and a guy who actually had a case brought against him for raping an underage girl with his friend the underage sex trafficker as President.

      Honestly it kind of feels like the past few years broke the part of my brain that used to enjoy absurdity. Nothing feels absurd anymore, as everything has become plausible in a world gone mad.

    • Vanon@lemmy.world
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      You need to understand that the Republican party is by now a well-distilled cult, and most will vote for literally anyone they are told to.

      Any news they don’t like is fake, including Jordan covering up sexual abuse, and T****'s 90+ felony charges. Their minds are ravaged by years of misinformation and conspiracies (hate-for-profit “news”, social media propaganda, etc). They simply do not know or care what is real anymore. To be brutally honest, these are also symptoms of just being very dumb, but now they’ve been organized and weaponized.

  • InternetUser2012@midwest.social
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    1 year ago

    This piece of trash wouldn’t even be in office if it weren’t for his insanely gerrymandered district. Skips all the brown areas and hits all the good ol boys.

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    1 year ago

    This will continue until we get rid of FPtP voting & the #GOP joins the Whigs in the dustbin of political history.

    • pathos@kbin.social
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      FTTP actively encourages a two party system. We need to change the way we vote so we can have better candidates and better representation.

      • Jaysyn@kbin.social
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        And you can’t do that until the #GOP is decimated at the polls and removed from power.

        There is a reason why the #fascist #GOP is banning other methods of voting.

        • centof@lemm.ee
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          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.

          • Jaysyn@kbin.social
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            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.

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            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.

            • Maeve@kbin.social
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              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.

              • SCB@lemmy.world
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                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

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                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.

                • Maeve@kbin.social
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                  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.

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            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.

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            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.

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              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.

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                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.

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                  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.

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    If they didn’t want the traitors getting opportunities there, they probably shouldn’t have let them keep working there. Can’t really be up in arms now, no one really stopped them from coming back to work on January 7th.

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    Gymshoe Jordan is a complete failure and will take the position and fail. That’s better than getting someone competent and screwing up stuff for Dems in 2024

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    A part of me feels like they setup the debt just so they could eventually oust the speaker and put the person they actually wanted there. Wasn’t the first speaker largely contested to the point they had to be voted on numerous times anyway?

    • Optional@lemmy.world
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      Fifteen votes, iirc. Which is ludicrous.

      They are not serious people. Violent, yes, ignorant, oh yeah, and arrogant and so on. But they are not thoughtful, not serious.