There are plenty of lunatics to choose from on the Republican side of the U.S. political aisle, but Ohio Representative Jim Jordan is easily among the most unhinged.
He doesn’t spend his time spewing utter nonsense at top volume like GOP mascot and screaming banshee Marjorie Taylor Greene, but Jordan’s brand of insanity is, in many ways, worse. Because he sometimes seems like a normal-adjacent human being, people let their guards down where Jordan is involved. And he uses that lowered guard to sneak in monstrous policies and pursue blatantly bigoted initiatives even as he dodges the very same responsibilities he expects his colleagues to strictly adhere to.
Take Congress’ expectation of compliance to subpoenas. A subpoena is, according to Cornell Law School, a “written order to compel an individual to give testimony on a particular subject, often before a court, but sometimes in other proceedings (such as a Congressional inquiry).” Further, Cornell notes that “failure to comply with such an order to appear may be punishable as contempt.”
That’s exactly the punishment Jordan himself attempted to hand down to Hunter Biden after President Joe Biden’s adult son failed to comply with a subpoena. That’s despite the precedent set down by folks Jordan who have been dodging their own subpoenas for several years now.
Jordan, along with several of his fellow Republican colleagues, blatantly ignored a May 2022 subpoena of their own after they were asked to appear in court to share any information they had on the Jan. 6 insurrection attempt. None of them showed.
They’ve officially been dodging the subpoena for years now, which fellow Congressmen Eric Stalwell was happy to point out in a recent clip that’s been circulating online. The California Democrat minced no words in his response to Jordan’s clear hypocrisy, asking the representative if this was all a “joke” before launching into an applause-worthy condemnation of Jordan’s actions.
Asking if “this is a committee that now cares about subpoena compliance,” Stalwell pointed out that Jordan “failed to honor” his own subpoena. “For 608 days and counting, you didn’t show up,” Stalwell said, showcasing a timer that counts the 608 days, 15 hours, and 21 minutes that had passed, at that point, since Jordan’s subpoena came down.
The resulting clip is quickly becoming a rallying cry among Jordan’s many critics, who are quick to point out that if Hunter Biden and Peter Navarro are guilty of contempt of Congress, then Jordan is too.
The entire situation is classic American politics, but it could spell bad news for the futures of Jordan and even Donald Trump. See, Jordan and his peers are seeking to lay down a precedent, and once that’s done it can’t be undone. That could lead to future convictions of other people who have dodged court subpoenas — you know, like Jordan and Trump themselves.
Both have ignored subpoenas in the past, and since Trump is sure to face many more in the future, Jordan’s latest move could actually serve the American public well. It could set down a definitive precedent that demands witnesses either comply or be found in contempt, and in the process it could rid us of some of our most obnoxiously destructive politicians.
