Representative Jim Jordan, a scrappy former wrestler and firebrand founder of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, has always relished a fight. So it was no surprise this week [November 2019] when, as President Trump’s chief defender in the impeachment inquiry, he interrupted the staid tone of the first public hearing and let it rip.
“And you’re their star witness?” he thundered at William B. Taylor Jr., the top diplomat in Ukraine, after prodding Mr. Taylor on Wednesday to say that he had never met the president, and that his information was secondhand. “You’re their first witness! You’re the guy?! I’ve seen church prayer chains that are easier to understand than this.”
For Mr. Jordan of Ohio, it was both an attention-grabbing moment and a chance to redeem himself with Republican leaders after years of being on the outs. The party is relying on him to frame the narrative Republicans offer to the public as Mr. Trump faces the gravest threat yet to his presidency.
It is one in which the president is a victim, witnesses are trafficking in hearsay at best, and working to undercut the duly elected president at worst, and Mr. Trump’s campaign to press Ukraine to investigate his political rivals was a perfectly appropriate exercise of executive power.
On Friday, Mr. Jordan’s gloves-off style — part pit bull, part rat-a-tat auctioneer — was put to the test when Marie L. Yovanovitch, the ousted ambassador to Ukraine, testified in deeply personal terms about how she felt “threatened” by Mr. Trump after it emerged that he had told President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine that she was “bad news” and would “go through some things.”
Mr. Jordan, apparently working to avoid appearing to bully her, treaded relatively lightly in addressing Ms. Yovanovitch. He reserved his tart tongue for the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam B. Schiff, who tried to force the Ohio congressman to wrap up his questioning as he blew through the five-minute limit.
“My indulgence is wearing out,” Mr. Schiff said.
“Our indulgence wore out with you a long time ago, Mr. Chairman,” Mr. Jordan shot back. A rumble emerged from the audience, which uttered a collective “Oooooh.”
Mr. Jordan was installed on the intelligence panel at the last minute by Representative Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader, so that he could take a prominent role in the public questioning. He and other Republicans on the panel spent part of Thursday in “murder boards” — mock hearings — to prepare.
“It’s just like adding a pinch-hitter or a relief pitcher,” Mr. McCarthy said in an interview.
With polls showing the public deeply split on whether Mr. Trump deserves to be impeached, and views hardening along party lines, Mr. Jordan is unlikely to change any minds. But for now, his presence on the panel is assuaging the Republican base, which is looking for someone tough to go up against Mr. Schiff, Democrat of California, a strait-laced former federal prosecutor.
“I think it is helpful in a setting dominated by Schiff to have somebody who’s willing to be the equivalent of a middle linebacker in football,” said Newt Gingrich, who was speaker during the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. “He’s willing to plunge in and make the tough case, and do it in very understandable language.”
...
Reading Mr. Taylor’s own testimony back to him, Mr. Jordan reminded the witness that he had said it was his “clear understanding” that Ukraine would not receive nearly $400 million in military aid from the United States until Mr. Zelensky announced the investigations. That is the essence of Democrats’ case that Mr. Trump abused his power.
“Now with all due respect ambassador, your clear understanding was obviously wrong, because it didn’t happen,” Mr. Jordan said sharply, going on to note that Mr. Zelensky never made such an announcement and that the aid was ultimately released. (He neglected to say that Mr. Trump released it under pressure from lawmakers on Capitol Hill.)
“So I’m wondering, where’d you get this clear understanding?” Mr. Jordan said, wrapping up. Mr. Taylor was unbowed: “As I testified, Mr. Jordan, this came from Mr. Sondland,” he said, referring to Gordon D. Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union and an ally of Mr. Trump.
Mr. Jordan, in a brief interview, said he was simply trying to get at the truth — at least as Republicans see it.
“Our job is to get out the facts, the truth, and let the American people know that the facts are on the president’s side, strongly on the president’s side, and let the American people see what they already know, which is that the process is unfair,” he said. “We will just keep doing that.”
Democrats, both here in Washington and in his home state of Ohio, see Mr. Jordan as bomb-thrower who is more interested in theatrics and obfuscation than substance. Julian Epstein, who served as the Democrats’ lead counsel in the impeachment of Mr. Clinton, called Mr. Jordan a “carnival barker who peddles dopamine to the base.”
Jerry Austin, a Democratic strategist in Ohio, called Mr. Jordan “a colossal jerk,” adding, “He basically is an actor, playing the part of this right-wing conservative congressman that whatever Donald Trump does, he’s defending” (Stolberg 1-3).
If their questioning of the special counsel Robert Mueller last July or the transcripts of the closed-door hearings are any guide, Jordan and his colleagues will engage in grandstanding with speeches that complain about due process and, taking their cue from Trump, portray the whole impeachment effort as a partisan sham – an effort by the deep state, or swamp, to stage “a coup” against the duly elected president.
They have put forward their own list of witnesses they would like to call, including former vice-president Joe Biden’s son Hunter, whose business dealings in Ukraine are the subject of baseless allegations of corruption, and the unnamed whistleblower who first brought Trump’s phone call to national attention.
Kurt Bardella, a political commentator and former spokesman and senior adviser for the House oversight committee from 2009-13, said: “Republicans will try to disrupt the hearings and make motions to subpoena people like Hunter Biden. They’ll do everything they can to stop the proceedings even starting, and to promote conspiracy theories that insulate Trump (Smith 2).
Representative Jim Jordan is one of five Republicans serving on a new House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis — just a few weeks after he testified against it being created.
“This select committee was not established to cast blame on past failures, foreign or domestic, or to search for the virus’s origin,” Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-South Carolina) said in his opening statement. “But rather to pursue future success.”
But Clyburn’s
message was not well-received by the Republicans on the
panel.
Jordan (R, 4th Congressional District), who was
named to the group by House Republican leadership, has said the
committee shouldn’t exist because Congress already has other forms
of oversight
(Jordan
is the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee).
He’s
also claimed this new select committee is politically motivated
because Clyburn, who was named chair by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
is a prominent supporter of former Vice President Joe Biden’s
presidential campaign.
…
“It was inadequate testing that precipitated the national shutdown,” Dr. Ashish Jha testified [May 2020]. “We must not make the same mistakes again as we open up our nation.”
Jha, who is
the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, was singled out
by Jordan minutes later.
“It’s a committee designed to
go after the president,” Jordan said. "The very first witness,
who just a few minutes ago, said it was inadequate testing that
initiated the shutdown. I thought the shutdown was initiated to bend
the curve to make sure our health care system wasn’t overwhelmed.
But we already got a political statement from the very first
witness.”
That prompted Jha to then respond.
“Every
expert on the left, right and center agrees that we had to shut our
economy down because the outbreak got too big,” Jha said. “The
outbreak got too big because we didn’t have a testing
infrastructure that allowed us to put our arms around the outbreak.
And so testing was the fundamental failure that forced our country to
shut down.”
…
“I say I’m going to focus on the truth,” Jordan said ... “I’m going to focus on the amazing response we’ve seen from the administration. I’m going to focus on the fact that this president shut down travel from China and all these folks on this committee and Democrats and folks in the media criticized the president for doing it at the time, and it turned out to be a great decision. I’m going to focus on the truth that the World Health Organization took our money and lied to us.”
Jordan did not ask the witnesses
any questions during his speaking time.
In various parts
of their testimony, the witnesses called for increased testing and
contact tracing before the country could safely reopen (Popielarz
1-2).
… If modern society already has plenty of vaccine mandates, and they're widely seen as uncontroversial, what's wrong with defeating a deadly pandemic with one more?
To resolve the incongruity, opponents of Covid-19 vaccine requirements have two choices: They can accept the effective policies, or they can start pushing back against mandates that predate the current crisis. As The Washington Post noted [October 2021], one far-right congressman prefers the latter.
“The clash over mandates is playing out far beyond Texas.... Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), an outspoken conservative, tweeted that "Ohio should ban all vaccine mandates."
… I checked the Ohio Department of Health's website, which features an "immunization summary for school attendance." It's not an especially short list: Before children can attend schools in Ohio, they must be fully immunized against, among other things, polio, measles, hepatitis B, chickenpox, diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis.
This is not a new policy. It's existed for years and it's proven effective. But according to Jordan, the state of Ohio should nevertheless "ban all vaccine mandates" — because whether these requirements work well in preventing the spread of serious illnesses is less important than whether these requirements are ideologically satisfying (Benen 1).
Jim Jordan, who represents Ohio’s highly gerrymandered 4th District in the US House of Representatives, said in an interview on Tuesday that he had Covid "early in the summer" [2021], without giving details.
"I’ve had the virus," he said in response to a question from Spectrum News about whether he had been vaccinated. "I don’t talk about my health status with reporters, but I’ve had the coronavirus and recovered, and actually had that antibody test done, and it showed my antibodies were strong."
…
"I think we’re way past this," he insisted then. "I think the country is ready to move on and we’re done with this, but you guys just keep wanting to talk about it. I have not [been vaccinated], but I have been tested, I don’t know how many umpteen dozens of times" (Dodds 1).
[Here are excerpts from a Frontline interview conducted by Michael Kirk June 16, 2020]
What happened in Minneapolis is a tragedy. It’s just wrong as wrong could be. And those killers deserve swift justice, and Mr. Floyd’s family deserves swift justice for those killers.
The president also understands that peaceful protest is—it’s part of the American experience; it’s part of our First Amendment liberties. And we’re all for it. We’ve all engaged in it. But there is a big difference—and the president was clear about this—there is a big difference between peaceful protests and rioting and violence and mayhem and going after police officers, in some cases killing police officers. Big, big difference.
And the president has, I think, you said in your question or your comments, that the president understands that the vast majority of law enforcement people are good folks and they are risking their lives every day in our communities to protect our communities.
So those are sort of the fundamental principles. And finally the fourth one I would throw in is, the president understands, and so do the American people, that this idea of defunding the police and dismantling and getting rid of police departments is crazy. It is completely crazy.
…
To walk across to a church that just the night before rioters were trying to burn down, to walk across to that church where so many presidents had actually worshiped in, and to show the American people the church is still standing, the leader of our country is standing right here, holding a Bible, holding the Holy Scripture, I thought it was exactly the right thing and the right message to send. ...
…
I think that’s all it is. I think that, you know, there are some who want to make it more than that. But I think it’s a positive message sent to the country at an important time.
Well, you want to go back to some of the policies that I think failed under the Obama administration, you go with Joe Biden. You want someone who will do what they said and get things done, you vote for President Trump. I think it’s really that clear. This president is doing what he said he would do. Joe Biden has switched positions to appease the far left in his party and everything else, and that to me is the clear choice. And again, I think people in Ohio and the Midwest, they see it. They see it just as plain as day. And it’s going to be a big win for the president (Kirk 15-18).
Congressman Jim Jordan, from Ohio’s 4th Congressional District, touted President Trump as the “pro-America candidate” and lambasted Democrats for what’s happening in some U.S. cities.
“The Republican party is the pro-America party. President Trump is the pro-America candidate,” said Jordan, who represents Ohio’s 4th Congressional District, which includes Auglaize, Champaign, Logan, Shelby counties.
“This election is about who can preserve the values, principles, and institutions that Make America Great,” the 56-year-old Congressman from Troy said Monday night [August 2020]. The party planned a mix of virtual and in-person events in North Carolina and Washington, D.C.
“Don’t believe me? Look at what’s happening in America’s cities – all run by Democrats. Crime, violence, mob rule. Democrats refuse to denounce the mob.
“And their response to the chaos? Defund the police, defund border patrol, defund the military. And while they’re doing all of this, they’re also trying to take away your guns.”
The ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee and member of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform listed several decisions made by Democrats that have harmed the nation.
“Democrats won’t let you go to church, but they’ll let you protest,” he said. “Democrats won’t let you go to work, but they’ll let you riot. Democrats won’t let you go to school, but they’ll let you loot.”
The co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus said Trump has fought against what the congressman called the Democrat’s “crazy ideas.”
The president has taken on the swamp, the Democrats, the press, and the Never Trumpers, Jordan said.
“And when you take on the swamp, the swamp fights back. They tried the Russia hoax, the Mueller investigation, and the fake impeachment. But despite this unbelievable opposition, look what this President has accomplished.”
Jordan then listed accomplishments Trump has achieved.
“Taxes cut, regulations reduced, economy growing, lowest unemployment in 50 years, out of the Iran deal, embassy in Jerusalem, hostages home from North Korea, new USMCA agreement, and he’s building the wall, and rebuilding the economy,” Jordan said.
“I love the president’s intensity and his willingness to fight. But what I also appreciate is something most Americans never see – how much he truly cares about people,” Jordan said … (WHIO 1-2).
The final days before Election Day could be some of the most important in the country's history, U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, told a crowd of more than 100 Saturday outside the Crawford County Courthouse [October 2020].
"There are moments that really count," the congressman said. "I think we're at one of those moments of real magnitude."
…
"Next to Jesus, the best thing that has happened to this planet is the United States of America," Jordan said.
…
"I wish every American could meet the president," Jordan said. "When you're around him, you can't help but like him. There's a charisma about him. He loves this country."
He said he and Trump had spoken five times in the 13 days prior. It was during those conversations that Jordan said he realized how important it was for voters to show up on Election Day. If they don't, he said America risks being fundamentally destroyed by the Democrat Party.
"The good thing is I think he's going to win," Jordan told the crowd.
The congressman said the political left of America has been radicalized, saying that even sporting events have been infiltrated by socialist ideas that were once left to the opinion pages.
"Now you turn on ESPN and they're giving political commentary," Jordan said.
Voters who choose not to cast a ballot this election should remember that, he said, because if they don't, that radicalization will spread.
"What's at stake is so critically important," Jordan said. "I know you all know that, that's why you're out here on a Saturday morning."
…
"Don't ever, don't ever let anyone tell you this isn't the greatest nation in history," Jordan said. "It's worth fighting for and that's why the next 17 days are so important" (Tuggle 1-2).
Works cited:
Benen, Steve. “Why It Matters that Jim Jordan Wants To 'Ban All Vaccine Mandates'.” MSNBC, October 13, 2021. Net. https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/why-it-matters-jim-jordan-wants-ban-all-vaccine-mandates-n1281403
Dodds, Io. “Republican Vaccine Mandate Opponent Jim Jordan Reveals He Had Covid over the Summer.” Yahoo Sports, November 24, 2021. Net. https://sports.yahoo.com/republican-vaccine-mandate-opponent-jim-060036190.html
Kirk, Michael. “Jim Jordan.” Frontline, June 16, 2020. Net. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/interview/jim-jordan/
Popielarz, Taylor. “Rep. Jim Jordan Expresses Frustrations in First Coronavirus Oversight Hearing.” Spectrum News 1, May 14, 2020. Net. https://spectrumnews1.com/oh/columbus/news/2020/05/14/rep--jim-jordan-expresses-frustrations-in-first-coronavirus-oversight-hearing
Smith, David. Jim Jordan: the Republican in 'Attack Dog Mode' for Impeachment Hearings.” The Guardian, November 13, 2019. Net. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/13/trump-impeachment-hearings-republicans-jim-jordan
Stolberg, Sheryl Gay. “Jordan Brings Pugnacious Style to Impeachment Defense of Trump.” New York Times, November 15, 2019. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/15/us/politics/jim-jordan-impeachment-hearings.html
Tuggle, Zack. “Jim Jordan: Upcoming Election a Moment of 'Real Magnitude.' Mansfield News Journal, October 19, 2020. Net. https://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/story/news/2020/10/19/jim-jordan-upcoming-election-moment-real-magnitude/3697340001/
WHIO Staff. “RNC 2020: U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan Touts President Trump as ‘Pro-America Candidate’.” WHIOTV7, August 24, 2020. Net. https://www.whio.com/home/rnc-2020-us-rep-jim-jordan-touts-trump-pro-america-candidate/WDE4BY3XBJFLLBEI3WCQKEU6MU/
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