OP Rep. Jim Jordan, of Ohio, suggested in a hearing this week that the Justice Department should pursue a 2020 election conspiracy theory involving former President Barack Obama and Italian satellites that Trump had pushed in conversation with the DOJ to justify his electoral defeat.
“That is a problem. When the chief of staff to the president of the United States asks someone in the executive branch to do something, and they basically give him the finger. I think that’s the problem we should be looking into,” Jordan said, attacking the DOJ officials who had dismissed Trump’s rants as “pure insanity,” according to Above the Law columnist Elizabeth Dye.
Of course, Trump’s claim is ridiculous and his demand that the DOJ to look into is preposterous, noted As Dye noted.
“To be clear, the Italygate theory is beyond batsh*t,” wrote Dye. “It involves Barack Obama amassing a secret $400 million war chest, then cahootsing with former Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to disrupt vote tabulation in key swing states using Italian military satellites. And somehow this was all coordinated at the US Embassy in Rome, according to Brad Johnson, a self-described retired ‘CIA Station Chief’ and current Epoch Times columnist.”
It didn’t matter to Jordan that there is no basis for this theory, wrote Dye — nor the fact that Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows violated DOJ independence by making demands of that they investigate.
“Not only did Meadows transgress long-established norms meant to protect the Justice Department from just the kind of political interference he engaged in, but he was also in flagrant violation of the White House’s own policy,” concluded Dye. “But disregarding flagrant violations is kind of Jim Jordan’s bag, so perhaps yesterday’s antics should come as no surprise.”
