Jim Jordan believes federal government should have no power -- except to investigate Hunter Biden
In a Meet the Press interview, the new Judiciary Committee chair, in the wake of Tyre Nichols police killing, said government should have no ability to regulate police forces
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Now that MAGA extremists in the GOP have taken over the asylum, we’re getting a closer look at what they believe government can and cannot do.
Basically, it come down to this: The federal government should have no power of any kind to do anything to help people, and everything should be left to the states — except for the GOP’s political vendettas.
Ohio Republican Jim Jordan, a MAGA cultist and Freedom Caucus member, is now chairing the Judiciary Committee, which is pretty scary. We’ve known for a long time just how anti-government the Republicans are, something that only metastasized under the MAGA movement.
But it’s not until they’re under a microscope that you realize how much they see no role for the federal government in setting policy, fighting discrimination and enforcing laws. It’s almost as if they shouldn’t even be members of Congress — in their minds, there shouldn’t be a Congress! — and it makes you wonder why they are even there, and what we’re paying them to do.
In an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” with Chuck Todd, Jordan, finally getting the kind of attention he’s always craved, actually said there’s nothing the federal government can do to stop police violence and killings like that of Tyre Nichols, the 29-year-old Memphis resident killed by five police officers, the video of which horrified the nation on Friday when it was released.
Nothing.
“I don’t know that there’s any law that can stop that evil that we saw that is just, I mean, just difficult to watch,” Jordan, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “What strikes me is just the lack of respect for human life. So I don’t know that any law, any training, any reform is going to change. You know, they, this man was handcuffed. They continue to beat him.”
“The fact that we saw that these individuals, these five individuals did not have any respect for life, and again, I don’t think these five guys represent the vast, vast majority of law enforcement, but I don’t know if there’s anything you can do to stop the kind of evil we saw in that video,” Jordan said.
The George Floyd Policing Act was passed by the House in May of 2020 but failed in the Senate as Republican senators refused to let it move forward. Not one Republican supported it. The law would have banned chokeholds and no-knock warrants, as well end qualified immunity, which shields law enforcement from accountability.
According to a fact sheet on the legislation at the time, the measure would also allow “individuals to recover damages in civil court when law enforcement officers violate their constitutional rights by eliminating qualified immunity for law enforcement.”
It would also have established a federal registry of police misconduct complaints and disciplinary action — something that would have been effective in the Nichols case, as there were many complaints against the officers charged — and increased penalties for officers who know there is brutality but look the other way.
The idea that the federal government has no role in making sure states and cities protect citizens and enforce laws is ludicrous. Jordon is opposed to even minimum standards by the federal government, even as we have a federal standard on murder.
Most telling, Jordon told Todd:
“I still think you want to keep this at the state and local level. This is a law enforcement issue. You start getting the federal government involved in databases and federalizing things, that get’s — the federal government screws it up so many times…We’ve had members of Congress show up on the no-fly list, characterized in the terrorist category…So there’s all kinds of problems with that.”
It’s that hatred of the federal government they pushed for a long time, posing the government as something malevolent and which will do more harm than good — and which has inspired terrorist attacks. It just becomes clearer that Jordan and his ilk see no role for the federal government — except, of course, in smearing and investigating those they consider their enemies, such as when we saw nine Benghazi investigations.
When the conversation with Todd turned to Judiciary Committee investigations, Jordan lit up — and saw a huge role for the government in investigating Joe Biden and classified documents, preposterously roping in Hunter Biden. But he saw no role in investigation Trump and the documents he stole.
Similarly, On CNN, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, the new chair of the House Oversight Committee said there was no reason to investigate Trump on the documents because their’s “no evidence” to warrant it. When asked then what evidence they have on Biden, he said, “That's what we're investigating.”
You honestly can’t make this up. Again, now that they’re under the microscope, all of their extreme beliefs, hypocrisies and abuses of power will be on full display for the American people to see. It may sink them even more quickly than previously thought.
Ultra rich coming from an individual who allowed the team doctor to molest the university's wrestlers. Now we know where the blind, deaf, and dumb comes from...
It's obscene that Jordan is the chair of the Judiciary Committee, just another reminder how America has sunk thanks to the decades long Republican efforts to undermine our democracy. But here we are. If seeing them under a microscope doesn't wake up Americans who still embrace reality, nothing will but perhaps a sign of the coming apocalypse for the Republican party is Chuck Todd suddenly growing a backbone and challenging them. That wasn't on my bingo card. Maybe there is hope.