Following two rounds of House hearings headed by Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), three legal experts pronounced sentence on the revelations so far, calling the Ohio Republican's attempt to uncover a wide-ranging conspiracy against conservatives nothing less than an "embarrassment."
Part of the GOP's appeal to voters before the midterm election of 2022 was a promise to use its majority in the House to open up investigations into President Joe Biden's administration, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Hunter Biden's laptop, 'Big Tech," and the "weaponization" of the Department of Justice under Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
According to legal experts Norm Eisen, Paul Michel and Tom Joscelyn, what Jordan has presented so far has been a waste of time and government resources.
In a column for Salon, the three wrote, "Jordan's whole 'weaponization' effort is an embarrassment. There is a right way to do oversight and to work with real whistleblowers, and this isn't it."
"We see Jordan's far-right snipe hunt as a mockery" of the committee's purpose, they wrote. "Neither weaponization nor whistleblowers were to be found last Thursday, when the subcommittee held its second hearing, focusing on the 'Twitter Files.'
"The prior 'weaponization' subcommittee hearing on Feb. 9 was also a sprawling, disconnected dud. No whistleblowers testified there either. Where are Jordan's witnesses with inside knowledge of the government's bad acts?"
"Whistleblowers have played an important role in uncovering genuine executive branch abuses, including the Ukraine scandal that led to Donald Trump's first impeachment," they noted. "But Jim Jordan and his witnesses are not exposing real wrongdoing by government agencies. Instead, Jordan and the committee majority seek to justify the far right's imaginary grievances and conspiracy theories."
They added that no one should be surprised that Jordan would end up nothing to show after all of his ranting and promises of uncovering misconduct, explaining, "Democrats on the subcommittee warn in a minority staff report that 'nearly all of the Republicans involved in' one of the subcommittee's investigations — 'the witnesses, some of the Members, and certainly their outside operators — are tied together by the attacks of January 6, 2021.' As documented in the Jan. 6 select committee's final report, Jordan was a 'significant player' in then-President Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election."
"Jordan and his colleagues risk making a mockery of whistleblower status. Their witnesses aren't legally recognized whistleblowers, and the 'weaponization' subcommittee isn't genuine oversight," they concluded.
You can read their entire piece here.
