As the new Congress got underway, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan appeared on “Meet the Press” for an interview that shed light on the Ohio Republican’s perspective. In fact, it was one of the more illuminating interviews with a GOP official that I’ve seen in a while.
NBC News’ Chuck Todd came prepared and challenged many of Jordan’s baseless claims with factual details. The congressman — who appeared on the “Meet the Press” set, seated just a few feet away from the host — heard what the host had to say, but simply ignored the accurate information that Todd presented. It was as if Jordan saw the facts as inconvenient, so he simply filtered the truth in such a way as to disregard information he apparently didn’t want to know.
Five weeks later, it’s happening again.
The new House Republican majority created something called the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which Jordan leads, and which is tasked with identifying instances in which nefarious insiders have used the levers of federal power to mistreat conservative victims.
The panel’s first hearing was embarrassing: Republicans whined about old grievances without presenting new information and invited witnesses who weren’t in a position to shed light on the issue at hand. “Clearly there is room to grow and improve before [more] public hearings,” a Republican insider told Rolling Stone soon after.
For the GOP members behind the “weaponization” panel, things went from bad to worse on Thursday night: The New York Times reported that the FBI whistleblowers whom Jordan had spent months touting had spoken privately to the committee — and they were literally unbelievable:
[T]he first three witnesses to testify privately before the new Republican-led House committee investigating the “weaponization” of the federal government have offered little firsthand knowledge of any wrongdoing or violation of the law, according to Democrats on the…
Read the full article here
