Jim Jordan's record includes a Jack Smith referral and Ohio State scrutiny

Moran voiced hesitation about Jordan while Self urged the party to fight on

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio comes to the House Republican leadership carrying a record built on confrontation. Earlier this year he grilled Jack Smith, the former special counsel appointed to investigate Trump’s actions after January 6, and after the hearing referred Smith to the Department of Justice for prosecution, accusing him of lying to Congress — a charge Smith and his lawyers have refuted. Jordan also denied in 2018 that he knew what was going on after accusations surfaced that he looked away from alleged abuse by Ohio State’s former team doctor, and he has become a little bit infamous on the Hill for taking his jacket off as things start to get heated in hearings.

Gringlas said he thinks the most important takeaway of the conversation about who Jim Jordan is, is what his selection says about how the Republican caucus is responding to the losses it took in the midterms. The question of how to move forward from those losses has somewhat divided Republicans, he said.

At the Smith hearing, Jordan said: “That’s the degree the left and Democrats were willing to go to get President Trump, putting on the witness stand someone everybody knows is making it up.” Afterward, Gringlas reported, Jordan was the one who referred Smith to the Department of Justice for prosecution, accusing him of lying to Congress, a charge that Smith and his lawyers have refuted.

Jordan’s time at Ohio State University, where he was a college wrestler and then an assistant wrestling coach, has also come under scrutiny. He has been accused of looking the other way from alleged abuse by the former team doctor. In an archived recording aired by NPR, an unidentified commentator said: “While he was an assistant wrestling coach there, that he knew that he was allegedly the doctor molesting athletes.” When those allegations surfaced in 2018, Jordan denied he knew what was going on.

The jacket habit has become part of Jordan’s Capitol Hill persona. His jacket even used to have its own account on Twitter, Gringlas noted, and Jordan was asked about the practice once on C-SPAN. “I guess mostly it’s because when I’m in committee, sometimes I get fired up at these witnesses who I think aren’t being square with me,” Jordan said.

Jordan is described on Capitol Hill as a hard-liner, a firebrand and a brawler, Gringlas said, and has been a regular presence on Fox News. “This 10-year attack on the president of the United States, on President Trump, started with Comey … and remember, he took the dossier that he knew was garbage,” Jordan said in one appearance. He never served in the upper echelons of Republican leadership, Gringlas said, but became maybe best known for his combative performances in committee hearings, especially during his time chairing the Judiciary Committee and the Oversight Committee in the House.

Jordan was also a vocal defender of President Trump during his two impeachments. During the proceedings over Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, he put the president’s answer on the record: “What do you want from Ukraine, Mr. President? I want nothing.”

The job Jordan now holds carries two central assignments, Gringlas reported: leading the conference back to the majority, which will not be easy given how many seats Democrats flipped this fall, and driving the strategy to rebut the many investigations of the Trump administration that Democrats have promised to commence on Day 1 once they take control. Jordan’s pitch, laid out in a letter to colleagues as he vied for the job, called him battle-tested when it comes to oversight and argued that offense not defense is what wins elections. “For far too long, we operated without a clear plan to survive the hour or the day in front of us,” Jordan wrote. “That will not cut it against an emboldened and energetic Democratic party.” In remarks aired by NPR, Jordan said: “Over the next two years, House Republicans will fight for American families. When Democrats offer more government, we’ll offer more freedom. And we will bring that fight in committee, on the floor and on the stump every single day.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson is stepping down from the job after the midterms, Gringlas said in an interview with NPR host Sacha Pfeiffer. The conference was split, Gringlas said — “I think it was 106 to 73” — between Jordan and his opponent for leader, Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican and longtime member of leadership who is maybe the more traditional pick.

Jordan came to Congress in 2007, just around the rise of the Tea Party in the 2010 era, and has been in Congress almost 20 years. Around that time he became the founder of the House Freedom Caucus, which Gringlas described as ultraconservative, and whose members “became a real pain in the butt for Republican leadership,” Gringlas said. Former Republican House Speaker John Boehner described Jordan as a “legislative terrorist” in his memoir and also in an interview with CBS. “You call some of these members political terrorists,” CBS’s John Dickerson said in the interview. “Oh, yeah — Jim Jordan, especially, my colleague from Ohio,” Boehner replied.

By 2023, Jordan ran unsuccessfully for speaker of the House after Kevin McCarthy was ousted from the job. In an archived recording from that contest, Patrick McHenry said: “The reading clerk will now call the role,” and later: “The Honorable Jim Jordan of the State of Ohio has received 199.” Jordan had Trump’s endorsement back then, Gringlas said. He did not win, and the gavel eventually went to Mike Johnson after a record number of votes. In recent years, though, Jordan has become more of an ally to the leadership of House Speaker Mike Johnson, and by this year he was campaigning and fundraising for Republican candidates across the country.

Pfeiffer noted that Republicans were “walloped” in the midterms, even as Trump has projected an “unbowed, uncowed” attitude coming out of the results. Some members described their hesitations about Jordan. “We saw independent and swing voters go with the Democratic side, and those are the voters we have to win back to win the 2028 election,” Rep. Nathan Moran of Texas said. “It’s clear now we’re in a dogfight.”

That position does not seem to be what is winning out in the conference, Gringlas reported. Right after the election, Trump appointed Stephen Miller as chief of staff, whom Gringlas described as a hard-liner, and Gringlas said the pick together with that appointment shows Republicans gearing up not to come to the center and work with Democrats to deliver bipartisan wins. “They’re going to double down, and they’re going to fight,” Gringlas said. Rep. Keith Self of Texas, a member of Jordan’s Freedom Caucus, read the results the same way: “That was a wave election. Moderates lost a lot of seats in this cycle. Trying to please everyone and play it safe did not protect them.”

The posture marks a different tact from what is happening in the Senate, where the conference reelected John Thune to lead the Republicans. Unlike in the Senate, House Democrats do not need help from Jordan or his party: Democrats could get about 260 members, Gringlas estimated — “a really healthy margin” — making it much easier for them to relegate Jordan and House Republicans “basically to the corner.”