GOP bluster ‘difficult to take seriously’ after DOJ tells Jim Jordan to ‘pound sand’: columnist

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) might not have gotten quite the response he was hoping to hear from his request to peek into investigations of Donald Trump and his Republican allies.

The Department of Justice pledged to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the "weaponization" of the federal government but warned Jordan that longstanding policy forbid them from confirming or denying the existence of pending investigations or sharing confidential information about such probes, wrote MSNBC columnist Steve Benen.

"It was a polite and professional way of the Justice Department telling the conspiratorial congressman to go pound sand, at least with regard to opening up the files of ongoing investigations," Benen wrote.

The House Judiciary Committee, which Jordan now leads, quickly responded with a tweet suggesting the Justice Department was "scared" to cooperate with the investigation, but Benen wrote off their complaint as bluster.

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"It was a difficult line to take seriously," Benen wrote. "For decades, the Justice Department has withheld non-public information about pending investigations, and for good reason: Confidentiality is important to protect the integrity of the process. It does not mean that federal law enforcement is 'scared'; it means Jordan and his cohorts think they’re entitled to information that they can’t have."