The House Judiciary Committee was in session recently, and it’s safe to bet that its chairman, Ohio Republican Jim Jordan, probably wishes it hadn’t been, because he got called out for his hypocrisy and humiliated by committee member Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA).
During the hearing, Jordan issued subpoenas in connection with an investigation he and Republicans on the committee are conducting into the Department of Justice and FBI, both of which they claim have been “weaponized” since Joe Biden became president, as Axios reported earlier this week.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) — facing criticism that his probe of alleged mistreatment of conservatives by “weaponized” U.S. agencies has moved too slowly and found little — is threatening to subpoena 16 more witnesses from the FBI.
Swalwell told Ben Cline (R-VA) of the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Responsiveness and Accountability To Oversight that he found it incredibly ironic Jordan would dare to issue subpoenas when the Ohio Republican had refused to comply with a subpoena from the House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
“I think it’s quite rich that we are talking about subpoena compliance under a chairman of the full committee who was absolutely out of subpoena compliance in the last congress.”
The California Democrat was just getting warmed up, however, adding, “So we’re gonna call witnesses in here today and claim that they did not comply with subpoenas or requests, and that request is so rich because it’s coming from a chairman who himself did not comply with the January six committees request.”
Directing his next comments directly at Jordan, Swalwell continued.
“You were a witness to a crime. You were a witness to the greatest crime ever committed with the most criminals ever indicted in America. Will you help your country? Will you comply with that subpoena?
“No compliance. Crickets. Absolute defiance of a subpoena. And because of that defiance, the chairman was referred – and still pending – to the House Ethics Committee.”
Swawell ended his comments with this flourish:
“So this our chairman, hauling all us here, everyone here today. People at the Department of Justice, the Department of Education – who are doing important work – to claim they are out of compliance when he himself is currently out of compliance.”
Twitter users gave Swalwell a social media standing ovation and took turns mocking Jordan.
