Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee released a report exposing Jim Jordan’s DOJ whistleblowers as fakes.
Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), member of the House Judiciary Committee, and Stacey Plaskett (D-VI), member of the federal government’s Special Armaments Subcommittee, wrote in the looking forward to their report:
This partisan investigation, such as it is, is largely based on what President Jordan has
described as “dozens and dozens of whistleblowers… coming to tell us about what is going on
on, the political nature at the Department of Justice.
To date, the House Judiciary Committee has held transcribed interviews with three of these individuals. President Jordan, of course, declined to name any other “dozens and dozens” who might have spoken to him. He also refused to share any documents these people may have provided to the Committee. Nonetheless, based on the interviews of the three witnesses made available to us, we are able to draw a number of striking conclusions about the state of the Republican investigation.
First, the three individuals we met are not, in fact, “whistleblowers”. These people, who advanced a wide range of conspiracy theories, presented no real evidence of wrongdoing to the Department of Justice or the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Second, the transcribed interviews we’ve held so far refute the House Republican narrative of “bias” at the Justice Department. We urge President Jordan to schedule the public testimony of these individuals without delay. The American public should be able to judge for themselves whether these witnesses or their claims are barely credible.
Third, these interviews also reveal the active engagement and orchestration of disturbing outside influence on the witnesses and, potentially, the Republican members of the select subcommittee. A network of organizations, led by former Trump administration officials like Kash Patel and Russell Vought, appear to have identified these witnesses, provided them with financial compensation and found them jobs after they left the FBI. These same people pushed for the creation of the select subcommittee in the first place. They have a story to tell and they seem to be using House Republicans to tell it.
Fourth and finally, almost all of the Republicans involved in this investigation – the witnesses, some of the deputies, and certainly their outside operators – are linked by the attacks of January 6, 2021. The witnesses we met opposed the arrest of individuals suspected of besieging the United States Capitol. Others among the “dozens and dozens”, we suspect, participated directly in the riot. Whether this investigation is an attempt to whitewash the insurgency or guard against pending indictments, it has been spectacularly ineffective – but these extremists share a view contrary to the security of our republic, and the American public has a right to worry.
We note that, in the normal course of business, we will not release the substance of a transcribed interview at this stage of an investigation. Even when we disagree with the goals of our fellow Republicans, we respect the importance of congressional scrutiny. We asked our staff to prepare this report only after learning that House Republicans had begun to share the
content of these interviews with the press. Full context and reasonable rebuttal are necessary to protect the truth.
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The big takeaway is that whistleblowers aren’t really whistleblowers. This is the usual collection of Trump quirks that have been put together to help deceive the public and advance a political agenda. No one knows exactly what the purpose of this investigation is beyond trying to hurt Biden and help Trump, but the whistleblowers were a humiliating failure of Jim Jordan and Trump.
It hasn’t been two months yet, but the major Republican inquiries in the House are facing up.
Jason is the editor. He is also a member of the White House press pool and a congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason holds a bachelor’s degree in political science. His graduate studies focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and the American Political Science Association