Rep. Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, has invited outrage by pointing out that the public does not have the right to disrupt Congress, despite his long record of protecting those involved in the January 6, 2021, riots.
The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee made the comments during Wednesday’s heated hearing with Attorney General Pam Bondi, who criticized Democrats for questioning the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, ICE, and many other controversial cases.
Turning the conversation toward former CNN journalist Don Lemon, who is facing federal civil rights charges related to his alleged role in the disruption of a Minnesota church service last month, Jordan followed protesters inside the building with his cameraman, Jordan presented Bondi with a series of legal proposals.
“You’re not allowed to exercise your constitutional rights to the detriment of anyone else, are you?” he asked, earning a firm “no” in response.
“You have a right under the First Amendment to petition the government [but] That doesn’t mean you can come into this room and yell at Mr. Raskin or me or anybody else and disrupt a congressional hearing,” he continued.
Ohio Republican Representative Jim Jordan presided over Wednesday’s fiery House Judiciary Committee hearing with Attorney General Pam Bondi (Getty).
“You have the right to protest in the streets, but that doesn’t give you the right to go to the Capitol and disrupt Congress.”
Another former CNN anchor, Jim Acosta, was among those who pointed out the irony of his comments, given Jordan’s past support of MAGA’s efforts to block the certification of the 2020 presidential election results to reverse President Donald Trump’s defeat.
“Dude,” he wrote on X (Twitter), marveling at Congress’s lack of self-awareness.
Jordan was one of 147 Republicans who voted on Jan. 6 to reject the 2020 election results in Pennsylvania and Arizona, saying Democrat Joe Biden fraudulently beat Trump, an opinion shared by thousands of conservatives who stormed the Capitol that day.
He then admitted in a virtual committee meeting 10 days later, “What happened in the Capitol on January 6 was as wrong as could be wrong,” only to then refuse to cooperate with the House Select Committee on the January 6 attack, for which he was referred to the House Ethics Committee.
Jordan refused to cooperate with the House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 attack, calling its subpoena a ‘disgraceful abuse’ of its authority (AP)
Writing to the panel’s chairman, Benny Thompson, in January 2022, Jordan accused it of an “outrageous abuse” of his authority, rebuking the committee as an “unprecedented and inappropriate demand to examine the basis of a peer’s decision on a particular matter pending in the House of Representatives.”
“This request is beyond the bounds of any legitimate inquiry,” he added, “asked to testify,” he added, “violates basic constitutional principles and further undermines legislative norms.”
The committee later heard from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to then-Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, who accused Jordan of being in contact with the White House about presidential pardons for Republican members of Congress who played a role in a plot to overturn Biden’s victory.
The committee eventually named the congressman more than a dozen times in its final report on the Capitol riots, calling him a “key player” in the effort to override Trump’s defeat.
It accused him of meeting with presidential aides to discuss “strategies to challenge the election,” chief among them claiming the election was tainted by fraud and advising Meadows to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to release valid electoral votes.
