Washington, D.C. – Last week, reporting from inside the GOP’s House Speaker battle showed Jim Jordan once again refused to admit that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. As more Republicans announce they will support Jordan for Speaker, former Spokesperson for the January 6th Select Committee and Senior Communications Advisor for the Congressional Integrity Project Hannah Muldavin said the following,
“Anyone who votes for Jim Jordan as Speaker of the House is aligning themselves with an ardent election denier, coup-plotter, and subpoena dodger who will not say to this day whether he believes Joe Biden is the legitimate President. There is every reason to believe that if faced with another situation like January 6th, Jim Jordan would act exactly as he did in 2020. Every Republican who votes for Jim Jordan should be held accountable for his anti-democratic actions and answer the question: are you supportive of the plot to overthrow the 2020 election and the continued attempted cover-up?”
Jordan previously led the charge of election denialism in the House and was a key player in Trump’s scheme to overturn the election on January 6th. Before votes were even counted in 2020, Jordan accused Democrats of trying to “steal” the election, and after the election did everything within his power to stop the certification of the election results, including encouraging members of the public to “show up and fight” on January 6th. He refused to cooperate and ignored subpoenas from the January 6th Select Committee. And yet somehow he – and the majority of the House GOP caucus – think he deserves to be Speaker of the House.
Read just a few more examples of Jim Jordan’s long history of election denialism and coup plotting below:
September 2020: Jordan Urged His Followers Not To Allow Democrats To “Steal” The Election. On the floor of the House, Jordan once again accused Democrats of “trying to win the election after the election” by allowing the “curing” of mail-in ballots with minor errors and legally counting ballots received after Election Day in some states. Jordan’s GOP staff on the House Judiciary Committee drafted a report on election integrity that concluded that, “Democrats are seeking to change state election laws and procedures at the last minute to advantage themselves in the 2020 election cycle.” Throughout the month of September, Jordan tweeted repeatedly exhorting his nearly three million followers not to let Democrats “steal the election.”
November 2020: Jordan Embraced A Series Of Increasingly Outlandish Conspiracy Theories About The Election. On November 15, Jordan told Fox News that Democrats had rigged “6,000 votes in Michigan went for Biden but they were actually supposed to go for President Trump.” He endorsed Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell’s nonsensical allegations about Dominion voting machines and Smartmatic, and his comments were eventually included in Smartmatic’s defamation suit against Fox News. Jordan made false allegations about voter fraud in Georgia and questioned vote counting practices in Iowa, New York, and California.
Jordan Was Deeply Involved In The Plot To Overturn The Election. According to evidence presented by former Mark Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson, Jim Jordan was one of the members of Congress heavily involved in calls and meetings with Trump and his top aides as they devised the strategy to overturn the election in December 2020. Jordan was identified by Hutchinson as being involved from the earliest stages of the effort to overturn the election. Deposition excerpts filed by the January 6th Committee showed Jordan and other allies in Congress were frequently present in meetings where strategies to prevent Joe Biden from taking office were discussed, including efforts to replace the leadership of the Justice Department with figures who would sow doubts about the legitimacy of the election.
January 6, 2021: Jordan Spoke With Trump Multiple Times On January 6, Both Before And After The Attack On The Capitol. Jordan has given numerous evasive answers about how many times he spoke to Donald Trump on January 6 and when the calls took place. He told the House Rules Committee in October 2021 that, “I talked to him after the attack happened and we were moved to the chamber. I may have talked to him before, I don’t know.” When Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern asked Jordan if he discussed a “coordinated effort to overturn the results of the election” with Trump, Jordan said: “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Records obtained by the committee in February 2022 indicate that Jordan also spoke on the phone with Trump for 10 minutes on the morning of January 6 before the rally on the Ellipse and the Capitol riot. Asked about the morning call, Jordan still claimed not to recall how many times he spoke to Trump that day or at what times:”I talked to the President a number of times that day, but I don’t remember the times,” Jordan said. Even after the attack, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani contacted Jordan attempting to stop the certification in the hour before the joint session resumed.
January 13, 2021: Less Than 10 Days After January 6, Jordan Defended Attempts To Overturn The Election. While claiming that Congressional Republicans condemned the violence of January 6, Jordan was back in action less than 10 days later, delivering a floor speech on January 13 reiterating his objections to the election and defending the attempts to overturn the results. Jordan continued to insist in conservative media appearances in January 2021 that Democrats cheated by “changing the rules” to win the 2020 election.
May 2022: The January 6th Committee Subpoenaed Jordan’s Appearance For A Deposition. He Refused To Comply. After his refusal to voluntarily cooperate, the January 6th Committee subpoenaed Jordan and four other Republican lawmakers. Rather than comply with the subpoena, Jordan issued a list of demands of the committee and never complied with the subpoena.