Jim Jordan's Probe Into Fani Willis Doomed To Fail
U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan on November 14, 2023, in Washington, DC. Jordan has written to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis over the Georgia prosecutor’s probe into Donald Trump and 18 others in her 2020 election interference case.
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan has been accused of launching an investigation into Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis based on information that has been public for a year.
The Ohio Republican Representative has written a letter to the Georgia prosecutor who indicted Donald Trump and 18 others in her 2020 election interference case. He accused her office of having “coordinated its politically motivated prosecutions” with the now-defunct House Select Committee which investigated the January 6 attack.
Jordan, a staunch ally of the former president, said Willis’ office sought records from the January 6 committee as part of her investigation. Jordan said she had sent a letter to the panel’s chairman, Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson, seeking access to recordings, transcripts and other communications and documents obtained by the Democrat-majority panel during its probe into the 2021 Capitol riot.
Echoing rhetoric from Trump that the criminal investigations into the former president are politically motivated, Jordan requested that the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office hand over all documents and communications with the January 6 Committee by December 19. Willis’ office has been contacted for comment via email.
“To the extent that your politically motivated prosecutions are now relying in any way on records obtained from the partisan January 6 Select Committee, it only reinforces concerns about your commitment to due process and whether you have fulfilled your obligations to properly disclose this material,” Jordan wrote.
Jordan’s letter states that the Judiciary Committee is unaware of “what records, if any,” Willis’ office obtained from the January 6 committee. Reporters and legal experts have noted that Willis’ office obtaining information from the January 6 committee is already public record, and was mentioned in the House Select Committee’s 845-page report which was released in December 2022.
“It’s not unusual or improper for law enforcement to request docs from other government bodies,” Anna Bower, a legal fellow and courts correspondent for Lawfare, posted on X, formerly Twitter while sharing Jordan’s letter.
“It’s been publicly known for a while now that Willis received some information from J6C directly. I mean, it’s literally in the report. There’s no gotcha here.”
Bower is referring to a section in the January 6 report titled “The Committee’s Concerns Regarding Possible Obstruction of its Investigation,” which notes that both the Department of Justice and the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office “obtained information” relevant to allegations that people tried to obstruct the panel’s probe, including from the Committee directly.
Discussing Jordan’s letter, Politico’s senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney said: “You don’t have to be a fan of Fani Willis’ investigation to find it bizarre that the entire basis of this ‘coordination’ claim is that Willis made a routine request to the Jan. 6 committee to see their records (and we don’t even know if the committee responded).”
In response, the X account of the House Judiciary Committee posted: “To say this is a ‘routine’ request is completely inaccurate and shows a lack of knowledge for how Congress historically works.”
Reacting to the criticism, a spokesperson for Jordan’s office told Newsweek that the documents and communications that the Ohio congressman is seeking from Willis’ office “have not been made public.”
It is unlikely that Willis’ office will comply with Jordan’s demands. After she brought charges against Trump and others in her election interference probe in August, Jordan wrote to Willis demanding information regarding her probe against the former president. In a September letter, Willis told Jordan there is “no justification in the Constitution for Congress to interfere with a state criminal matter, as you attempt to do.”
Elsewhere, Thompson called out Georgia Rep. Barry Loudermilk, a subcommittee chair on the House Committee on Administration, after the Republican wrote a letter asking the former January 6 committee chairman to hand over any documents relating to Willis’ request for information.
“I have received Mr. Loudermilk’s letter, which, like his previous correspondence, contains significant factual errors,” Thompson said in a statement.
“As I have said time and again, the Select Committee archived its official records in accordance with House rules. Only the Committee on House Administration is in possession of these records and Mr. Loudermilk is fully aware of this.”
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