Rep. Jordan Threatens to Issue Subpoenas If Biden Officials Fail to Comply With Document Requests

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) speaks during an on-camera interview near the House Chambers during a series of votes in the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington on Jan. 9, 2023. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the new House Judiciary Committee chairman, resent several requests for outstanding documents and information to Biden administration officials Tuesday with a warning.

“This stonewalling must stop,” Jordan wrote in a letter (pdf) addressed to FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Noting that the Jan. 17 letter would be “the final time” the committee requested the information, Jordan added, “The Committee is prepared to resort to compulsory process, if necessary, to obtain this material.”

Similar letters were sent to White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, Attorney General Merrick Garland; Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas; Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) Director Steven Dettelbach; and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Administrator Anne Milgram.

Each letter, referencing the Judiciary Committee’s outstanding requests, asked that the officials “immediately comply in full.”

https://twitter.com/JudiciaryGOP/status/1615410536727908353

“For two years, the Biden Administration has stonewalled Congress, refused to comply with basic document requests, and avoided transparency and accountability for its failures,” the Judiciary Committee noted in a Jan. 13 statement. “House Judiciary Republicans are committed to holding each agency accountable under the new majority and will use compulsory processes, if necessary, to get answers for the American people.”

Letters and Leaks

In the previous Congress, Jordan served as the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, spearheading Republican efforts to probe into the actions of Biden administration officials, including attempts to regulate firearms, the alleged political bias of FBI employees, the Justice Department’s investigation of parents who expressed their frustrations at school board meetings, and other matters.

But while the committee sent several letters requesting documents, information, and in-person testimony on those topics, Jordan’s Jan. 17 letters establish that, as of yet, the administration has been uncooperative with those oversight attempts.

For instance, in his letter (pdf) to Klain, Jordan noted that the White House had not only ignored the committee’s requests for information but also leaked a flippant Dec. 29 response to the press before sending it on to the committee.

“[T]he Biden White House provided a perfunctory letter that discounted Congress’s constitutional oversight authorities, failed to produce any documents or information requested, and declined to address any matters of substance,” Jordan recounted. “The White House leaked this letter to the media, and briefed at least one reporter on it, before transmitting the letter to the Committee at 4:34 a.m.—severely undercutting the White House’s purported commitment to working with us in ‘good faith.’”

The White House’s letter, written by White House Special Counsel Richard Sauber, was obtained exclusively by Politico and published at 5 a.m. on Dec. 29, just 26 minutes after the committee had received it.

“Congress has not delegated such [oversight] authority to individual members of Congress who are not committee chairmen, and the House has not done so under its current Rules,” Sauber wrote in the missive, stating that the previous requests would need to be resubmitted after Jordan became committee chairman.

That reasoning, however, did not hold water with Jordan.

“Setting aside the constitutional and legal fallacies inherent in the White House’s argument, nothing in federal law prevented the White House from voluntarily complying with our requests,” the congressman noted.

“In addition, to the extent the White House believed it was bound only to comply with requests from committee chairmen, the White House has had notice since at least November 16, 2022, that a returning Republican Member would lead the Judiciary Committee in the 118th Congress and has taken no steps to comply with our outstanding requests in that time,” Jordan continued.

“In fact, as of today, we have seen no evidence that the White House has taken any steps to comply with our requests.”

Investigations

Last week, the Republican-controlled House approved the formation of a new investigative subcommittee to probe into the “weaponization of the federal government.”

The panel, a subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, will have access to sensitive intelligence information that is typically only available to the House Intelligence Committee as well as the authority to inquire into the federal government’s methods for investigating American citizens, including ongoing criminal investigations.

The panel is reportedly being modeled after the 1975 Senate Church Committee that investigated the abuses of U.S. intelligence agencies.

But while Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) has described the subcommittee as “dangerous” and “a violation of the separation of powers,” Jordan, who is expected to chair the panel, said it was necessary to eliminate the appearance of a double standard between how conservative and liberal Americans are treated by the federal government.

“This idea that if you’re a pro-life activist, you’re going to get your door kicked in, you’re going to get arrested and handcuffed in front of your seven kids and your spouse for simply praying in front of an abortion clinic and telling the guy who was harassing your son to knock it off,” Jordan said Jan. 10 on the House floor, apparently referencing the FBI’s arrest of a Tennessee pro-life advocate in October.

“Americans are sick and tired of it,” he added. “And what we want—we don’t want to go after anyone. We just want it to stop, and we want to respect the First Amendment to the Constitution that the greatest country in the world has.”

Other matters the House has pledged to investigate include the origins of COVID-19, the Biden family’s foreign business dealings, and most recently, the president’s mishandling of classified documents.

A spokesperson for ATF said the agency “responds to all Congressional correspondence and will likewise be responding to Chairman Jordan’s letter.” The DEA declined to comment. The White House and the other letter recipients did not return inquiries from The Epoch Times.