Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Jim Jordan (R-OH) told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Sunday that House Republicans are considering using their thin majority to make a fuss about funding for federal law enforcement.
“We control the power of the purse… We’re gonna have to look at the appropriations process and limit funds going to some of these agencies, particularly the ones who are engaging in the most egregious behavior,” Jordan said during the Fox interview.
“So the DOJ and the FBI?” Bartiromo asked.
“Yeah,” Jordan replied. “And what I’d really like, frankly, I’d really like for the government just to stay out of the election process.”
This is all just a lot of talk on Jordan’s end. Republicans could try to pass some sort of legislation in the House, but it’d have to make it through the Senate, which Democrats still control. And as evidenced by how Jordan has run his so-called “weaponization” committee and his handling of the House GOP’s response to the Trump indictment, the noise-making is likely the point. First of all, he is railing against the Manhattan DA’s office, which prosecutes violations of New York state laws, not federal.
But Jordan is also only the most recent MAGA-aligned lawmaker to call for defunding federal law enforcement as a defense of Trump after relentlessly attacking progressive Democrats for years for their interest in overhauling local police department’s budgets and investing more in community programming.
Following the Mar-a-Lago raid last year, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) repeatedly called for defunding the FBI.
And in March, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) struck a similar tone.
“We either get this government back on our side or we defund and get rid of, abolish the FBI, the CDC, ATF, DOJ, every last one of them if they do not come to heel,” he said at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Jordan’s remarks come just days after a Manhattan grand jury investigating Trump’s role in the $130,000 hush money payment made to porn actress Stormy Daniels voted to indict former President Donald Trump.
During the interview, Jordan also accused federal law enforcement of “spying” on Trump’s campaign and attacked Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s indictment of Trump.
Jordan and his MAGA allies have been attacking Bragg ever since Trump falsely announced on May 18 that he would be arrested in three days. Two weeks ago, Jordan, alongside House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) and House Administration Committee Chair Brian Steil (R-WI), demanded sworn testimony from Bragg and requested documents related to any communications between the Justice Department and the DA’s office — a request rooted in Trump-fueled conspiracy theories about the Biden Justice Department interfering in the Trump hush money investigation.
