It’s tempting to think House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan would be one of the White House’s favorite members of Congress. The Ohio Republican is a sycophantic Donald Trump booster who consistently toes the party line, follows the president’s lead and uses his influential gavel to pursue many of the GOP’s favorite conspiracy theories.
For some on Team Trump, however, that’s not quite enough.
As this week got underway, Peter Navarro, the president’s top adviser on trade policy, appeared on Steve Bannon’s program from just outside the West Wing, and when the discussion turned to assorted election conspiracy theories, Navarro made little effort to hide his disappointment in Jordan.
“I don’t know what happened to Jim,” the adviser said. “He’s been so unhelpful in so many ways with that gavel in his hand.” Navarro added that White House officials intend to “put a little heat” on Jordan.
This might have seemed unexpected, given the circumstances, but Navarro has made related comments before. Nearly a year ago, Navarro appeared on Real America’s Voice and said, “Jim Jordan is the biggest disappointment of my life in the Hill. … Jim Jordan sits on his ass, and he’s done it for years.” The White House adviser added, “I love the guy [but] he’s not doing his job.”
The underlying problem is more complex than Navarro seems to appreciate.
On the surface, it seems preposterous that the White House would express public disappointment with Jordan of all people. Just in recent years, the Judiciary Committee chairman has done everything from pursue Joe Biden’s impeachment to leading a “weaponization” panel, from holding conspiratorial hearings related to Trump’s 2020 election defeat to launching a lengthy investigation into a conspiracy theory involving the tech sector.
He even referred former special counsel Jack Smith to the Justice Department for potential criminal prosecution for reasons that didn’t make any sense at all.
To hear Navarro tell it, none of this is enough because Jordan hasn’t actually produced any results. None of the aforementioned partisan endeavors amounted to anything meaningful, and for all intents and purposes, Jordan did little more than waste everyone’s time, including his own.
But while the Ohio Republican is certainly welcome to present a defense of his work, it’s worth emphasizing that Jordan’s assorted debacles, while embarrassing, have not been for lack of effort. The Judiciary Committee was chasing mirages, which meant failure was inevitable.
Jordan tried to impeach Biden, but the Democratic president had not committed any impeachable offenses. He led a “weaponization” panel to look for evidence of Biden-era abuses that didn’t exist. He held hearings into assorted conspiracy theories that Trump believes, but there was no evidence to uncover to bolster the underlying nonsense. He went after Smith, but Smith did nothing wrong.
The White House is certainly free to “put a little heat” on Jordan, but the temperature isn’t the problem. Reality is.
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