During a speech at the University of Minnesota last week, Liz Cheney told the audience point-blank, “Jim Jordan knew more about what Donald Trump had planned for January 6 than any other member of the House of Representatives.” She added, “Jim Jordan was involved, was part of the conspiracy in which Donald Trump was engaged as he attempted to overturn the election.”
Pointing to Jordan as one of the leaders of Trump’s efforts surrounding January 6, Cheney said someone needed to ask the Ohio congressman, “Why didn’t you report to the Capitol Police what you knew Donald Trump had planned?”
The January 6 committee’s final report documented that “Jordan was a significant player in President Trump’s efforts” to overturn the 2020 election. Jordan went way beyond simply amplifying Trump’s election lies “during interviews with friendly media outlets” — as the January 6 report details the congressman did in fact do.
The January 6 report goes on to document various efforts by Jordan to help Trump achieve his goal of remaining in power despite losing the 2020 election, including participating “in numerous post-election meetings in which senior White House officials, Rudolph Giuliani, and others, discussed strategies for challenging the election.”
The report also highlights his leadership role, writing that on “January 2, 2021, Representative Jordan led a conference call in which he, President Trump, and other Members of Congress discussed strategies for delaying the January 6th joint session.”
During that call four days before the January 6 attack, the group not only strategized about ways to delay the congressional certification process but also “discussed issuing social media posts encouraging President Trump’s supporters to ‘march to the Capitol’ on the 6th,’” the report said. After that January 2 conference call, Jordan spoke to Trump for 18 minutes in a one-on-one phone conversation, according to the report.
And on the day before January 6 — as described in the report — “Jordan texted Mark Meadows (then Trump’s chief of staff), passing along advice that Vice President (Mike) Pence should ‘call out all the electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all.’ ” In other words, Jordan was suggesting how Pence could prevent the certification of President Joe Biden’s win when Congress met on January 6.
Jordan spoke to Trump at least twice on January 6, according to the report, but made “inconsistent public statements about how many times they spoke and what they discussed” that day. That is a big reason why the January 6 committee subpoenaed Jordan, noting in its report that he was among those who “had materially relevant communications with Donald Trump or others in the White House.” However, Jordan refused to comply with the subpoena, and he was referred to the House Ethics Committee.
How could anyone such as Jordan, who is tied to efforts to block certification of Biden’s victory and who willfully ignored a congressional subpoena, ever serve as speaker of the House? If he were in that position during next year's election, what other kind of threat would he be to our Democracy?
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