GOP congressman details potential investigations if party takes back power in 2022
WASHINGTON (TND) — In an interview Thursday on Lisa Boothe’s “The Truth” podcast, U.S. Representative Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, described three potential investigations that could occur if Republicans regain control of Congress following the midterms.
Jordan is currently the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, so if the GOP took over, he would be in position to become the committee’s chairman. Chairs make decisions on how committees will spend their time and resources.
“The top three are the DOJ, what they’re doing to parents. I mean, the idea that we had this whistleblower come forward and tell us that there was an email sent out and talked about this threat tagged designation is a label put on moms and dads and what’s happening there. So that’s priority number one,” Jordan said to Boothe, according to The Daily Caller.
In November, Republicans cited emails from a Federal Bureau of Investigation whistleblower, indicating the agency had set up a database “to track instances of related threats” against school board officials, according to the National Review. “The purpose of the threat tag is to help scope this threat on a national level and provide an opportunity for comprehensive analysis of the threat picture for effective engagement with law enforcement,” the email reportedly continued.
The FBI has denied targeting parents, but Jordan has said he believes the whistleblower’s email “provides specific evidence that federal law enforcement” employed counterterrorism tools “against concerned parents,” he wrote in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Jordan told Boothe his second priority was to get Department of Homeland Security Secretary of State Alejandro Mayorkas to testify in front of the House Judiciary committee about the southern border crisis. Republicans have urged current Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., to call Mayorkas in front of the committee, but Nadler has not done so, according to The Daily Caller. Mayorkas has testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“Mayorkas is yet to come in front of the Judiciary Committee,” Jordan told Boothe Thursday. “Secretary Mayorkas every year would come in front of the Judiciary Committee because we have primary jurisdiction over immigration law, and he’s yet to appear in front of our committee. He’ll go in front of the other committees, but he won’t come in front of ours, Jerry Nadler will never bring him in. So those are the two front and center.”
Jordan said the third priority would be putting together a joint investigation with the Senate Oversight Committee – in order to bring in Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Ron Johnson, R-Wis. – meant to look into the origins of COVID-19 and whether the National Institutes of Health funded dangerous coronavirus research in China. “Think about this Lisa, everything that they lied to us about or misled us about. I mean, first of all, Joe Biden said he had a plan,” Jordan said, according to The Daily Caller.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director and chief medical advisor to the president, has denied allegations that the U.S. funded controversial coronavirus research in China. But numerous revelations have surfaced in recent months that Republicans have pointed to, insisting Fauci is wrong, or lying.
RELATED NEWS: Fauci staffers raised concern in 2016 about NIH funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan
In June, Jordan sent a letter in conjunction with House Committee on Oversight and Reform Ranking Member James Comer, R-Ky., to Fauci. The letter pressed Fauci on his insistence that there was not any taxpayer funded “gain-of-function” research taking place at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
“House Republicans remain concerned about the origins of COVID-19, including the increasing possibility it originated and subsequently leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China,” the letter reads. “In 2014, you, through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded EcoHealth Alliance, Inc. (EcoHealth) a grant entitled “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.” This grant allowed EcoHealth to “[t]est predictions of [coronavirus]transmission using reverse genetics.” Funds from this grant were subsequently awarded to the WIV. Using your own definition, it appears the NIH funded gain-of-function research at the WIV.”
