Rep. Jim McGovern on Tuesday slammed Rep. Jim Jordan for sending a “substitute” to the contempt of Congress hearing for Attorney General Merrick Garland and for defying a congressional subpoena.
“Ranking Member Raskin, Ranking Member Nadler, Chairman Comer, and we're missing a chairman here,” McGovern said, listing off members of the House Rules Committee during its hearing on potentially holding Garland in contempt of Congress. “Mr. Jordan, I think, sent a substitute — which is unfortunate, because I would have liked to have asked Chairman Jordan about his noncompliance with a congressional subpoena. But I guess maybe he was too afraid to come, or didn't want to have to deal with that question.”
House Democrats have frequently criticized Jordan for defying a subpoena from the January 6th committee, and are now calling hypocrisy for he and other Republicans pushing to hold Garland in contempt of Congress for not turning over audio of President Joe Biden's interview with special counsel Robert Hur.
The Massachusetts Democrat McGovern criticized the state of the House of Representatives and said the hearing was a distraction from former president Donald Trump's conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records late last month.
“I got to be honest with you: I mean, what the American people are sick of is how pathetic this House of Representatives have become,” McGovern said. “This is a distraction from the fact that the Republican nominee for president is a convicted felon. That's what this is all about.”