‘WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT’: Jim Jordan ERUPTS over FBI’s assault on democracy

Welcome back a fiery hearing yesterday in Capitol Hill. Attorney General Pam Bondi accusing the Biden administration of weaponizing the federal government through Operation Arctic Frost. This is a 2022 FBI probe which targeted dozens of Republican entities all surrounding the results of the 2020 election. New FBI documents were released and they reveal former special counsel Jack Smith tracked the private

communications and phone calls of at least eight Republican senators during his January 6th investigation. Joining me now is Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan. He is the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Mr. Chairman, we've talked a lot about the weaponization over the last several years, but over the summer you subpoenaed a prosecutor from Smith's team

to sit for a deposition. How would you characterize what has gone on over the last 10 years and tell us about that deposition you'd like to see?

Well, I always say, Maria, the only thing we get wrong when we start these investigations is it's always worse than we thought. I mean, who would have thought they would be spying on eight senators, one member of Congress? They would be spying on eight senators, one member of Congress. Who would have thought they'd take the phone of a sitting member of Congress, which they did to my friend and colleague Scott Perry? So it's always worse than we thought.

We've actually, yeah, brought in a number of the guys who work for Mr. Smith. We may, in fact, bring in Mr. Smith. We're still looking at that. But we brought these guys in for depositions. And let's just say they don't say a whole lot, but we're still pursuing all this. I think it's important to understand, they got the phone logs of all these individuals who were United States senators and a member of Congress.

They got their phone logs. And this is after several months prior to that, they took a sitting member of Congress's phone, Scott Perry. And the form that the FBI had when they were doing this to Scott Perry, they said we want photos of where he lives, we want to know his daily patterns. All this surveillance, I mean surveillance is just a just a fancy name for spying on a member of Congress. This is what happens

when you weaponize the government and we saw this time and time again from the Ray FBI, the Comey FBI and the Garland Justice Department.

But why? I mean, what were they trying to get at? We had Ron Johnson on the show yesterday. He was one of the people who was spied on. Here's what he said. What have you learned?

What can you tell us?

This doesn't surprise me. It should shock, it should outrage every American. Quite honestly, by now, it should be obvious to every American that it's not the Republicans that are a threat to our democracy. It's President Obama, it's President Biden, it's the radical leftists that have served and support them.

What was Marsha Blackburn doing? What was Lindsey Graham doing? You know, like, how did they choose which senators to surveil? It's a very odd group of people that they pulled their phone records on.

There's no chain of approval on this thing. Apparently, they evaded the normal chain of approval to do something. They apparently avoided an awful lot of the very rigorous approval that would normally be required. We need to have a judge unseal those records. We need to understand exactly what happened, exactly who was involved, and make sure the American public understands what happened.

Expose this so that the American people really do understand who and what party is the threat to democracy. Here's a hint, it's not Republicans.

I mean, I'm just stuck on why they came up with this group. You know, Bill Hagerty?

My hunch is these were individuals who were actually called the president on, you know, around January 6, 2021. My guess is they were people — I mean, there's lots of us who were talking to the president in those — you know, we talked to the president a lot,

just normal times, but certainly around January 6th when we were going to have that vote on the House floor. So my guess is it was those people, and then they tracked who those individuals, who those senators then in fact called. I think it's related to the state of Pennsylvania, but who knows? So what we do know is it's wrong, it shouldn't have happened, and we need to, I think, get to the bottom of it just as Senator Johnson said.

State of Pennsylvania. I'm with Harris Faulkner this morning. Go ahead.

Jump in, Harris. Well, good morning. Good to see you this morning. So, while they were watching Republicans, who was watching them? I mean, this was three years ago now, and this is coming forth, and it is hotter than fire.

So, I want to know, who's now watching them? Well, I think this is all part of this effort we've seen now for a full decade. I think it was all designed to make sure President Trump never ran again, was never going to be president again. The good news is they weren't successful in that effort. And I think this goes clear back to what we learned this

a few weeks ago about Mr. Comey. But this goes clear back to when they changed the intelligence community assessment back after President Trump won his first election, before he was sworn in as president in January of 2017. The intelligence community assessment was changed. We know this because the whistleblower came forward to Tulsi Gabbard, and she gave this

information to all of us. But they changed the assessment, and Jim Comey was right in the middle of that. It's interesting. He's getting indicted today or in rain today, but he's the one who was involved in changing the assessment, then going up to Trump Tower in early January of 2017, briefing the president on the dossier that he already knew was false.

And then once he briefs the president on this ridiculous document, he then leaks it to the press. And that became the predicate for launching the Mueller investigation and this whole 10-year effort that culminated with Jack Smith in trying to undermine, sabotage,

and hurt President Trump. That all happened. We know it all happened. We're just now getting more details to it. And we're going to continue to get these details and hold people accountable who were responsible for doing all that. So when you say hold them accountable, I mean is there, can you prove conspiracy here? I mean because if you're looking at

this and I said this to Senator Ernst yesterday, this deserves a criminal investigation now. These are just too many things that align together. Do you

see, is it a conspiracy?

Well, I think it starts today with what's happening to Jim Comey in the courtroom today. And I think John Brennan, I think he's involved in saying things that weren't accurate to Congress. I think maybe as recent as last Congress, when we deposed Mr. Brennan in our investigation

about the 51 former Intel officials and the letter they sent about the Hunter Biden laptop calling it Russian information operation. When they knew it wasn't, they had the laptop. So I think in that deposition, we also got into the dossier with Mr. Brennan.

I think he wasn't, it may be forthcoming to, it's straightforward with me. So I think we're gonna look at all those things

as we move forward with this investigation. Devin Nunes likes to use the word misled. So if we all know about that August 2016 meeting in the Oval Office where John Brennan wrote notes and he wrote notes saying the Russians are aware of Hillary Clinton's plan to tie Trump to Russia, right? So if he knew then in August of 2016 that they were coming up with a plan to tie Trump to Russia as a cover-up of the 30,000 emails that she deleted, how come he never told you in a hearing? He never brought that up, right?

He said it, he wrote it in his notes in August of 2016, but you questioned him, Devin Nunes, John Ratcliffe, all throughout those years, and he never said that on record. So can you say that that was also part of the— Maria— And don't forget about the Mar-a-Lago raid. OK, what were they looking for in the Mar-a-Lago?

Why was there a raid on the president's home?

Yeah, but Maria was worse than that. He not only didn't tell us that, he changed it and made it say something that wasn't supported by the underlying intelligence. He lied. They changed the report. And that's what happened between December 5th of 2016 and January 6th of 2017 when they

go to Trump Tower. Remember who went to Trump Tower? It was Brennan. It was Clapper. It was Comey. They all go to brief the president.

President Trump thinks it's the normal briefing that the incoming president-elect gets when they're getting ready to get to work. He thinks that's what's going on. He has no idea. It's a setup. He has no idea they're going to tell him about the dossier that was garbage and then go leak

it to the press so they get Mueller to do the special counsel investigation and undermine the first two years of his presidency. They changed it all. That's what Tulsi brought forward 10 weeks ago when this whistleblower came to her and told us. So that's where it all started. That's why it's so important. Jim Comey was right in the middle of all that. That's why it's so important.

He's held accountable, but also Brendan and Clapper and everyone else all the way up to Jack Smith because that's the timeframe.

Absolutely. And you know, Jim Comey admitted on stage when he did that interview with the MSNBC anchor, and he said, yeah, we figured if it was a more organized administration, we would maybe do it a little more formal. But we decided to just send over a couple of agents to question General Michael Flynn

and set him up for perjury.

And they did the same thing to General Flynn. Exactly. Set him up.

Exactly.

Sabotaged him as well. What about what CIA Director John Ratcliffe released this week? New documents showing that in 2015 then Vice President Joe Biden blocked the dissemination of intelligence and the intelligence showed that Ukrainian leadership, Ukrainian officials were concerned with his family's business ties. That they put Hunter on the board of Burisma. He had no experience at all.

They were concerned that he was accepting all of this money. John Ratcliffe joined me around that time when we, this was first underway happening. He joined me in 2023. Listen to what he said. Watch this. It's so disturbing to know that on the very day that Trump is indicted is the day that

we see that the Oversight Committee reviewed that document that shows a bribery scheme where Joe and Hunter Biden took $10 million from Burisma. Apparently, what Anna Paulina Luna just told us was for protection in Biden and Obama's

administration. But it's now been six years since, you know, Maria Yovanovitch at her confirmation hearing to become the US ambassador to Ukraine was briefed by the Obama-Biden administration about one company, Burisma, and to be concerned about that and the relationship

and the conflict of interest that Hunter Biden and Vice President Biden had. And then the FBI gets an FD 1023 saying, gee, the reason for that may have been that there was a five or $10 million bribe. And three years after receiving that, they still haven't moved forward. Where is Jack Smith talking about the even application of laws to the Biden family

enterprises.

You heard, you know, John Ratcliffe in 2023, Congressman, he laid it all out and you investigated this every step of the way.

Yeah, I think I think the real takeaway here is basically the Ukrainians are saying you're saying we're corrupt. How about what the Biden family has been up to? And just pointing out these sort of the obvious. And remember the sort of the fundamental facts, particularly with Burisma. Hunter Biden got put on the board of Burisma. He wasn't qualified to sit on the board. He said so himself in an interview. The head of the, the executives

at Burisma asked Hunter Biden to weigh in with his dad, with the then vice president, because they're being investigated by the prosecutor in Ukraine. Hunter Biden does just that. Joe Biden then goes over, uses our tax money, your listeners' tax money, or your viewers' tax money,

uses American tax dollars, and says, you're not getting that tax money unless you fire the guy who's checking into the company my son sits on the board of. That all happened, and that's the stuff Joe Biden didn't want made public.

Yep, and all the while the Democrats are saying that President Trump is a threat to democracy. Wow, unbelievable. Congressman, thanks very much for your work. We'll be watching your work, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Jim Jordan joining us on Capitol Hill.

Jim Jordan joining us on Capitol Hill. We'll be right back.