The overtly partisan House Select Committee established by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol riot of 2021 recently issued a subpoena for testimony to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and four other prominent House Republicans.

Jordan just fired back at that Democrat-dominated committee with a fiery letter that questioned the fundamental legitimacy of the committee and its subpoenas while issuing a list of demands of his own, The Hill reported.

The most ironic aspect of all of this is that Jordan had been picked by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to serve on that committee as a counterbalance to the Democrats but had been flatly rejected along with the rest of McCarthy’s picks by Pelosi, who instead selected for herself two anti-Trump Republicans, Reps. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), to grant a veneer of bipartisanship.

House Jan. 6 Committee subpoenas Jordan for compelled testimony

It was on May 12 that Committee Chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) issued a press release to announce that subpoenas for testimony had been issued to five Republican members of the House — including Rep. Jordan — after those members had previously declined invitations to voluntarily testify before the committee.

The subpoenas were issued because “the committee has reason to believe that they have relevant knowledge of the events on or leading up to January 6th and activities related to the transfer of power.” With specific regard to Jordan, the committee asserted that he “was in communication with President Trump on January 6th and participated in meetings and discussions throughout late 2020 and early 2021 about strategies for overturning the 2020 election.”

The Ohio congressman, of course, has been an outspoken friend and supporter of former President Donald Trump and had also supported the efforts by some GOP members to formally object to the Jan. 6, 2021, certification of President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory in Congress, which he viewed as suspect due to allegations of widespread voter fraud.

Jordan responds to “dangerous escalation” from the committee

In a response letter to that subpoena, the Republican congressman called the act a “dangerous escalation of House Democrats’ pursuit of political vendettas. Your decision violates core Constitutional principles, disregards House rules and precedent, and fails to address the concerns I raised to you about the Select Committee’s abusive tactics and pattern of due process violations.”

Jordan throughout the letter made repeated references to a previous letter he sent to Chairman Thompson outlining his serious and varied concerns about the Select Committee, including its overt partisanship, its utter lack of any real legislative purpose, and its very legitimacy in light of how its creation and subsequent actions appear to have violated numerous House Rules.

The congressman went on to state that he had “no relevant information that would advance any legitimate legislative purpose,” and, therefore, had nothing to offer as part of any dubiously compelled testimony before the committee. He did, however, seem to leave open a door to further discussion of the subpoena — provided that Thompson responded to a few demands of his own.

Jordan’s demands for information

Given that certain information has been withheld about everything that transpired during the Capitol riot, Jordan requested that he be provided with “all documents, videos, or other material in the possession of the Select Committee that you potentially anticipate using, introducing, or relying on during questioning.”

Likewise, because the committee had previously “publicly misrepresented nonpublic information,” he asked that he be provided with “all documents, communications, testimony, and other material in the possession of the Select Committee in which my name appears or in which I am referenced.

Finally, regarding the questionable subpoena itself, Jordan demanded access to “all legal authorities and legal analyses” of the committee and the House General Counsel “about the constitutionality of a non-ethics congressional subpoena to a Member of Congress.”