In 2022, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) openly defied a lawful subpoena issued to him by the bipartisan U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (January 6th Committee). In the ensuing two years, Rep. Jordan has issued at least 91 subpoenas to others in his role as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government (Weaponization Subcommittee). Jordan’s leadership positions and influence have allowed him to launch dubious oversight investigations, wasting taxpayer resources and failing to focus on issues that could significantly improve the lives of everyday Americans. The lack of accountability for Rep. Jordan and his disregard for the rule of law bring disrepute to the House, weaken democracy, and ultimately diminish people’s trust in government. The House must hold him responsible for his actions.
Background
On May 12, 2022, the bipartisan January 6th Committee issued a lawful subpoena to Rep. Jordan, related to his “significant” role as one of former President Donald Trump’s top allies in the wide-ranging plot to overturn the 2020 election, after he refused to voluntarily appear before the committee. Jordan’s deep involvement included leading key strategy meetings with Trump and senior White House officials, during which he discussed ways to overturn the election results, and communicating directly with Trump on the day of the insurrection. The January 6th Committee’s Republican co-chair at the time, Rep. Liz Cheney (WY), concluded that “Jim Jordan knew more about what Donald Trump had planned for Jan. 6 than any other member of the House.” Flouting House rules, Rep. Jordan refused to comply with the January 6th Committee’s subpoena, claiming he had no relevant information to the investigation and asserting that the committee was acting in an unconstitutional and “abusive” manner with no “legitimate legislative purpose.”
When the January 6th Committee issued its final report in December 2022, it referred Rep. Jordan to the House Committee on Ethics for appropriate punishment, concluding that his behavior “undermines Congress’s longstanding power to investigate in support of its lawmaking authority and suggests that Members of Congress may disregard legal obligations that apply to ordinary citizens.” Along with three other congressmen who also defied their subpoenas—Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who later became speaker of the House, as well as Reps. Scott Perry (R-PA) and Andy Biggs (R-AZ)—Rep. Jordan has never faced any disciplinary action from the House Committee on Ethics or the full House. In fact, Jordan has gained more power and influence within the House Republican conference, being rewarded with leadership positions as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and chairman of its newly formed Weaponization Subcommittee. Rep. Jordan was even nearly elected House speaker—second in line to the presidency—in October 2023. Meanwhile, former Trump White House aides Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon were sentenced to prison for similarly defying their January 6th Committee subpoenas.
Rep. Jordan has issued at least 91 subpoenas while conducting dubious oversight investigations
When House Republicans regained the majority in January 2023, they launched the Weaponization Subcommittee, housed under the Judiciary Committee, in part to investigate their caucus’s theory that the federal government is biased against conservatives and their viewpoints. Despite defying his lawful subpoena, Rep. Jordan has used his Judiciary Committee chairmanship to issue at least 91 subpoenas so far during the 118th Congress, according to records on the committee majority’s website, including published documents and press releases, and copies of other records furnished by the committee’s minority staff. Going even one step further, Jordan voted to hold U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a House subpoena, even though Garland had taken steps to do so.
Rep. Jordan’s actions make a mockery of House rules, the oath that members take when sworn into office, and the House’s crucial constitutional role in providing oversight and accountability to benefit the American people. Moreover, Rep. Jordan’s actions result in an antidemocratic, two-tiered system of justice: one for him and one for entities he investigates.
Rep. Jordan’s actions result in an antidemocratic, two-tiered system of justice: one for him and one for entities he investigates.
In his May 2022 letter explaining his refusal to comply with the January 6th Committee’s subpoena, Rep. Jordan wrote that the American people were tired of nonstop investigations and witch hunts. Yet the subpoenas issued by Jordan extend across investigations that appear to be more about Jordan using the Judiciary Committee and Weaponization Subcommittee to score political points than about conducting useful oversight to benefit the nation. For example, the Judiciary Committee, along with two other House committees, launched a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden in 2023, in part to “grant them the ability to better enforce their subpoenas in the courts.” Months later, the Judiciary Committee voted along party lines to recommend that the full House hold the president’s son, Hunter Biden, in contempt for defying a subpoena. Hunter Biden subsequently testified before the committee, and to date, the Judiciary Committee and other relevant panels have failed to produce any credible evidence to support President Biden’s impeachment.
Rep. Jordan recently focused his attention on investigating state and local law enforcement officials who are prosecuting former President Trump for attempts at election interference in 2016 and 2020. Jordan issued a 2024 subpoena to Fani Willis, the district attorney prosecuting Trump in Fulton County, Georgia, alleging she may have misused federal funds in the course of her investigation—a claim that she denied. Similarly, this year, Rep. Jordan threatened to subpoena Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose 2024 election interference prosecution against Trump resulted in 34 felony convictions. Jordan claimed that he is investigating politically motivated prosecutions of federal officials; although Bragg’s attorney contended that Rep. Jordan “has no power under the Constitution to oversee state and local criminal matters,” Bragg decided to voluntarily testify before the Judiciary Committee. Additionally, Rep. Jordan issued a 2023 subpoena for an ex-prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office and led House Republicans in filing a lawsuit against two U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) officials involved in prosecuting Hunter Biden, asserting the officials illegally defied the committee’s 2023 subpoenas.
Rep. Jordan has also misused his two chairmanships to investigate other matters, such as alleged anticonservative bias at the DOJ and FBI and alleged social media “censorship” of conservatives. Jordan’s misguided investigation into the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), a respected organization that has supplied important, rapid analysis of election and COVID-19-related disinformation, has caused the SIO to consider shutting down after spending millions of dollars in legal fees and “prompted a wave of alarm among those in the field.” The SIO’s leaders lamented, “The politically motivated attacks against our research on elections and vaccines have no merit, and the attempts by partisan House committee chairs to suppress First Amendment-protected research are a quintessential example of the weaponization of government.”
The investigations led by Rep. Jordan clearly come at large costs to the work of targeted entities. Aside from attorney fees and time, complying with committee requests or subpoenas and providing documentation and testimony are intense and time-consuming undertakings that distract from organizations’ important core missions—especially with Jordan’s threats to hold them in contempt of Congress. When organizations do turn over subpoenaed documents, their contents may be “leaked and sentences cherry-picked to fit an existing narrative,” and their employees are sometimes victimized by “threats and sustained harassment,” both of which happened in the case of the SIO.
Moreover, baseless congressional investigations waste considerable taxpayer money, member and staff resources, and countless hours that could have been used to focus on vital issues that are priorities for the American people. As the Judiciary Committee’s ranking member, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), explained in May 2024:
Chairman Jordan consistently opposes government spending on everything from feeding children to education to health care and has spent 20 million taxpayer dollars in this Congress to investigate his various conspiracy theories. And what exactly has he delivered to the American people on their $20 million investment? Exactly nothing. No evidence that the conspiracies are true, no indictments, no impeachment, no wins of any significance.
This is a dynamic that damages the short- and long-term functioning of the House.
Conclusion
Without full accountability for his defiance of a lawful committee subpoena, Rep. Jordan continues to bring disrepute upon the House. House Republicans’ decision to elevate Jordan to chairman of the powerful Judiciary Committee, and Jordan’s subsequent decision to issue at least 91 subpoenas—after defying his own subpoena—sets a harmful precedent for the future functioning of the chamber, especially at a time of heightened political extremism and political minoritarianism. This, in turn, weakens democracy and undermines Americans’ faith that the same system of justice applies to both elected officials and everyday people. The House must hold Rep. Jordan accountable for his actions.