'Vacuous' Jim Jordan's 'popgun' hearings roasted by former DOJ officials
Following the second of two highly-anticipated House Judiciary Committee televised hearings on the "weaponization" of the Department of Justice against conservatives, two former DOJ prosecutors came to the conclusion that Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) is shooting blanks at a target that doesn't even exist.
Writing for the Bulwark, former director of the Executive Office for National Security in the Department of Justice, Frederick Baron and former assistant U.S. attorney Dennis Aftergut were both left unimpressed at what Jordan witnesses have had to offer and suggested that, if Jordan's next round of hearings flop as badly as his initial offerings, then he'll be exposed as a paper tiger.
According to two attorneys, the "Twitter Files" hearing demonstrated, "once again, Jordan’s investigative weapon was loaded with blanks. And he was hunting dead game anyway."
Regarding Jordan's investigation into how Twitter initially handled the sketchy Hunter Biden laptop story, the two wrote, "He brought in reporter Matt Taibbi, who could not substantiate any governmental direction, control, or suggestion to Twitter that they should take down the Hunter Biden story. Moreover, Jordan ignored the fact that a knowledgeable former Twitter executive had testified last month before another House committee that neither the government nor Democrats instigated Twitter’s takedown or even provided information that prompted it."
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As the two noted, Taibbi's credibility --and therefore Jordan's -- "imploded" when the substack writer told the committee members that the so-called "Twitter-files" about the president's son's laptop was a bigger story than the 2008 economic meltdown that was biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression.
"Jordan’s vacuous Twitter Files hearing appeared to be an effort to distract from the negative response to his hearing on February 9 resurrecting random MAGA grievances. That first hearing led off with 89-year-old Senator Chuck Grassley as a witness complaining that it was Hillary Clinton and Democrats, and not Donald Trump’s campaign, who had 'colluded with the Russians,'" they wrote before adding that even Fox News host Jesse Watters was dismayed with what he has seen, telling his viewers, “Tell me this is going somewhere.”
"Jordan’s leadership thus far stands in stark contrast to his initial claim that his weaponization subcommittee would be a modern-day Church committee—the highly regarded 1975-76 Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Activities chaired by Senator Frank Church," they wrote. "Thus far, Jordan’s approach has been the polar opposite."
Summing up the Ohio Republican's ability to come up with the goods, they wrote, "Against this background, if Jordan’s next hearing does not produce weightier and more relevant evidence of government misconduct, Jordan’s weapon may look like a popgun firing a small cork on a thin string."