Morning Wire - Jim Jordan Fights Government Corruption | Saturday Extra

Episode Date: April 15, 2023

Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan has been leading the inquiries into the weaponization of the federal government, the political targeting of former President Trump, and so many other important political issues in America. We speak to him about the issues facing the country and its citizens. Get the facts first on Morning Wire. Ad: Black Rifle Coffee: Get 10% off your Coffee Club subscription! BlackRifleCoffee.com promo code ‘WIRE’ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan has been one of the Republicans leading the effort against what the GOP says is the weaponization of the federal government. He's also found himself in a public back and forth with Alvin Brad, the Manhattan District Attorney who's brought the first ever criminal charges against a former U.S. president. In this episode, we talked with the congressman about government weaponization, the controversial case against Trump, the alleged targeting of Elon Musk's Twitter, and the impact of all of this on free speech in the U.S. I'm Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Vickley with Georgia Howe. It's Saturday, April 15th, and this is an extra edition of Morningwire. Joining us now is Congressman Jim Jordan, chair of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. Congressman, thank you for joining us. You've been at the center of so many hot-button issues lately, weaponization of the government, FBI, targeting of conservatives.

First, what do you see as the most pressing issues facing Americans right now? Probably the attack on the First Amendment is probably, I think, front and center. but I guess maybe just the overall context. I mean, think about in the last four weeks, what we've learned. The FTC sends multiple letters to Twitter, a private company. In those letters, they asked Elon Musk and Twitter, who are the journalists you're talking to, named four journalists personally, by name.

We have two of those journalists come testify in front of our committee about this First Amendment issue and what they call the censorship industrial complex. So we have Matt Taibi and Michael Schellenberg come testify. While they're testifying, in front of Congress, Democrat members of Congress asked journalists, award-winning journalist, who are your sources?

Again, a direct attack on the First Amendment. And while that is going on, you have the IRS knocking on one of those witnesses' door, Matt Taubi's door. Now, I don't think that's a chance that the IRS does it the day he's testifying. I think it's total intimidation. Everyone I brought this up to says,

that's not an accident. That's not a coincidence. That's intimidation. So you have all that happening, and then you couple it with what we've learned the FBI was doing to target Catholics. We know about what they did a year and a half ago to target parents. And then you have a district attorney indict a former president using federal funds for no crime. We try to investigate, and he takes us to court. And the person we want to talk to is a guy who hasn't worked for the DA in a year.

So it's kind of scary when you think about that's all happening. We've learned all about all that in the last four, five, six weeks. it's truly mind-boggling. So I think that's probably the thrust of it, and that's what we're trying to get to the bottom of. Had these kinds of problematic actions by the government always been happening or has something actually shifted here? Is this an escalation of political targeting, as you say,

or is there just more of a spotlight on this issue now? I feel like it's a little both, but I think it's mostly shifted. I mean, we've seen in the last six, seven, eight years, I think, where you've just seen federal government, federal agencies in many ways kind of been turned on, turned against the very people they're supposed to serve. We, you know, we the people, the American citizen. So I think it has increased, and I think we've been able to uncover some things that, again, you just never thought you would see.

Take what we found in with the FBI at the Richmond Field Office. So you had them put together a memo. This is one of the, you know, there's, I think, 50-some field offices of the FBI around the country, maybe more than that, actually. But in the Richmond Field Office, they put this memorandum together. and it said look to develop sources within inside the church, look to develop informants within Catholic parishes amongst the clergy that looks like

and amongst the leadership within the diocese within the church. And you're like, that is so against the very first liberty mentioned in the First Amendment. You're right, freedom of religion. It's truly frightening. And then if you kind of read between the lines and you look at the footnotes, they talk about the term they use as radical traditional Catholic,

but they talk about the Dobbs decision in the footnotes. And basically what they're saying is they're defining radical traditional Catholic as a pro-life Catholic, which is sort of everybody. I represent so many pro-life Catholics in the 4th District of Ohio. And it's like, and now to the FBI's credit, I guess, they've said, oh, they've disavowed this, they've stopped this memorandum, said, no, no, that was wrong. What we did was wrong, they're investigating.

But would they have done that but for a brave whistleblower making it public and getting that to us and to others. I don't know. I'd like to think maybe they would, but that just, I think, underscores how this change has happened. And in essence, what the Richmond Field Office was doing

in my judgment was, it was sort of a fulfillment of Biden's speech, if you remember, the president's speech in front of Independence Hall when he called half the country fascists. So that's scary. Your committee has subpoenaed FBI documents

related to this alleged targeting of Catholics. Where does that investigation stand? Yeah, we have subpoena documents related to how that was put together. Because understand, when that memoranda goes out, two senior analysts and the chief division counsel at the Richmond Field Office signed off on it. So we want to know how the heck did that thing happen. We do know that that memo was sent to other offices around the country because the whistleblower who ultimately came public with that wasn't from the Richmond Field Office because it was sent

out to other places. So we want to know how all that happened. We want any communications and documents relative to how that memorandum was put together. You mentioned Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA charging Trump. You subpoenaed a former member of his office and then Bragg turned around and sued you. Where are we now with that situation? Well, we want to talk with Mark Pomerant because, again, if you sort of step back and look at how this all unfolded, remember that the Department of Justice wouldn't bring a case, the Federal Elections Commission,

wouldn't bring a case, the FEC didn't bring a case, the FEC, I mean, Federal Washington Commission. And even Cy Vance, the previous district attorney, wouldn't bring this case. Alvin Bragg himself wouldn't bring this case. And then because he wouldn't, even though he campaigned on it, he wouldn't Mark Pomerantz, who was working there

and some others, this Casey Donne, they resign, kind of throw a tantrum, talk about this. Pomerant's writes a book, and I think that pressure coupled with the fact that President Trump announced that he was running for president, and suddenly Alvabbergh changes his mind

because he's getting so much pressure from the left. He changes his mind and says, oh, now we are going to indict a former president. So that's sort of the background. We simply want to talk with Pomerance because we're concerned about a number of things. A, they use federal funds. B, this is interference in the most important election

we have, election of President of the United States. C, the underlying charge here seems to be about a campaign finance issue. And remember, think about the position President Trump is in. If he would have used campaign funds for this non-disclosure agreement payment, then the FEC comes after him.

But he didn't use campaign funds. He used personal funds and business funds. The DA's coming after him. So, well, it can't be both. So when you have a conflict like that, that's a federal concern as well because the Democrats keep saying, oh, this is not a federal issue, that the House Republicans on the Judiciary Committee

are interfering with local prosecution. We're like, no, no, no, you're interfering with our investigation. We want to know what's going on here because of those concerns. And right now they've taken us to court because we want to talk to Mr. Pomerant to asking questions. We're also concerned about there's a great story that was out by Margaret Cleveland where she highlighted how many folks who were tied with the Biden DOJ

also went to work and were helping Alvin Bragg. So we want to know was there any type of coordination. We don't know if there was, but I think that's a fair question, and the country deserves the right to have answers to those questions. Now, you cited freedom of speech as being the major issue you think is facing this country. You noted that the FTC has appeared to have been targeting Twitter since Musk took over and you're looking into that. What are you looking for?

Yeah, we want to know, I mean, understand Musta takes over the company, and the left goes crazy. And all along Musk has is we want to embrace the First Amendment, imagine that. So they go crazy. And then the FTC under Lena Khan, they cite a consent decree that was in place, had been in place for like 10, 12 years, for actions taken by the old Twitter,

way back when. But this consent decree is in place, and they use that as the basis for launching their investigation at Twitter, just so happens, it's really timed and really the intensity happens when Musk purchases the company. They send them 13 letters in a three-month time span. And the first letter after the first Twitter files comes out in that first letter. So there's been a few sent before. Then the Twitter files come out.

The next letter that FTC sends. The very first question is, who are the journals you're talking to? I mean, so, like, again, this is this chilling impact you see when government starts asking these kind of questions, taking these kind of actions, it just, I think, chills First Amendment free expression. That's what we're concerned about. We want to know the communications. How was this decided? What are you doing? How is this all happening? What took place? What are the things you're working on? So those are the kind of questions we've said. We've now actually sent a subpoena to the FTC trying to get information surrounding what we think is truly unprecedented attack on a company

that is now fully embraced the First Amendment as a big tech company there in Silicon Valley. have you guys had contact with Musk? Is he cooperating, helping out in any way with your investigations? I'll say this. We met when Mr. Musk came to Capitol Hill. He's actually friends with Speaker McCarthy. And so I was in a couple meetings with him and others talking about these broad concerns with the speaker.

This is probably six, seven, eight weeks ago when he was on Capitol Hill. I'm guessing that was the time frame. But yeah, we met with him a couple times. I found him to be a fascinating individual. You can tell truly, truly does love this great country, the Constitution, and the First Amendment. And that used to be something we could all agree on. I do think one of the biggest concerns we have today is the left used to embrace the First Amendment, cherish the First Amendment. And it used to be you had a real debate.

Today's left, they basically say, if you don't agree with me, you're not allowed to talk. And if you try, we're going to call you a racist. We're going to call you names. You guys know, you get that kind of stuff all the time. The template is the left will tell a lie, big media will report the lie, big tech will amplify the lie, you try to tell the truth. Oh, they call your names and they come after you. And it's ridiculous. And so I always tell folks, good friend of mine is Dennis Kucinich. lefty. I mean, he's like, he and I just, you know, I'm a conservative. He's a liberal, but he's a fair guy, and he's a good guy, and he believes in the First Amendment. And we used to work together in Congress, typically on civil liberty type issues. But he would chair this subcommittee and oversight when I first got to Congress, when they were in control, when we had the majority, I would chair it, and he would be the ranking member. There were times we could work together. And we're friends. We've had coffee together. We talked together. He doesn't think of the same way we do on policy, but he believes in the First Amendment. Let's have a debate. Let's not attack people and call people. name simply because we disagree. That's how it's supposed to work in the country. And today's left,

they just don't, they just don't, they're just not there anymore. And that is to me the most frightening thing. Final question. You're involved in a lot of hearings with your committees. Now, at least one field hearing run by Democrats has been covered by C-SPAN. Are they offering the same kind of coverage to Republican-led House Judiciary Committee hearings? Good question. Yeah, good question. What are we saying Yeah, no, they didn't even cover. We did a field hearing. They wouldn't cover it. We had a packed house, in fact, in Yuma, Arizona on the border. I never see anything like it. Normally a field hearing, you have like five people show up in the field. But Democrats didn't come. C-SPAN didn't cover it, but the people of Yuma packed this. It was like people literally had to wait outside. Couldn't get

in the auditorium there in the Yuma City Council building. And then, of course, C-SPAN said they're not going to cover our hearing up in New York next Monday morning. So go figure. That's the mainstream press. But we appreciate what you guys do. You cover the facts, the truth, and you get that information out to your audience, which is doing a great service for the country. Well, trying to help bring some balance here. Congressman, thank you so much for joining us. That was Ohio Republican Congressman Jim Jordan, and this has been an extra edition of Morning Wire.