House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) will subpoena Manhattan’s District Attorney and one of the DA’s lieutenants if the two don’t voluntarily appear before Congress to discuss the criminal convictions against President Donald Trump, Jordan exclusively told the Washington Reporter.

“Everything’s on the table,” he said about the possibility of subpoenaing Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and Department of Justice alumnus Matthew Colangelo, who has previously been described by Jordan as “a lead attorney in the political prosecution of President Trump with Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg,” if they fail to testify willingly.

Last week, Bragg expressed willingness to appear before Jordan’s committee, but not on Jordan’s proposed timeframe.“We got a notice [last week] and we’re communicating with them,” Jordan said. “But … if they’re not willing to come voluntarily, we will subpoena them.”

Pushing back against the “political warfare” from Democrats like Bragg and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is leading Georgia’s election-interference case against Trump, is one of Jordan’s many priorities. He is also working to ensure “that no funding should be able to go to any special counsel that hasn’t been approved by the United States Senate,” which would be unwelcome news for Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith and his classified documents case against Trump. Another priority of Jordan’s is to pass legislation to limit how “rogue state prosecutors” can target former presidents and vice presidents. Jordan also recently referred former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen to the DOJ for prosecution “because he gave false information to the committee a few years ago, six different times.” 

Although Republicans only control one chamber of Congress, Jordan wants to maximize his leverage to extract concessions from some of Trump’s familiar foes. One piece of unfinished business that Jordan wants to work on is the location of a potential new FBI headquarters. “It’s stupid” for the FBI to receive a lavish new headquarters, he said, especially because it “has retaliated against whistleblowers.” Jordan also called out a series of recent wins he’s proud of, including ensuring that former Department of Homeland Security official Nina Jankowicz no longer runs the department’s Disinformation Governance Board, which went defunct after less than one month. “Praise the Lord for that,” he said. Additionally, the IRS does not make unannounced visits to Americans’ homes anymore, which the agency claims is to “reduce public confusion and enhance overall safety measures for taxpayers” and IRS staff. “Baloney,” Jordan said. “They are doing it because we caught them knocking on Matt Taibbi’s door at the very moment that he’s testifying in front of our committee.”

Stopping government censorship and overreach, embodied by Jankowicz and the IRS’s abuses, is Jordan’s mission. One American who committed a plethora of abuses is Anthony Fauci, Jordan said: “Basically everything Fauci said turned out to be wrong” — including Fauci’s claims that “six feet of separation” has a basis in science, that there is no natural immunity, and that the pandemic emerged from a wet market.

In the months ahead, Jordan’s agenda is stacked. But Jordan likes a challenge. A Hall of Fame wrestler, Jordan took on older and, perhaps, better wrestlers during his freshman year of high school before he won the state championship. Then in college he clinched the NCAA title during his junior year, all because he got some sage advice: “My dad told me if you set goals and work hard, good things can happen,” Jordan said. “Because freshmen, particularly from our part of the state, we were downstate, weren’t supposed to beat the guys from Cleveland and Akron and Canton, in Northeast Ohio where wrestling was really really big and strong. But it worked and I won and I won.” 

The competitive mindset, Jordan said, is lost on society. “I feel like there’s so much downplaying of competition today in our culture,” he lamented. But that hasn’t stopped him from doing whatever it takes to get the GOP over the finish line. He’s optimistic about Trump and the GOP’s Senate candidate, Bernie Moreno, winning in Ohio. “I feel strong about Moreno. He’s got a tough opponent in Sherrod Brown, who has been on the ballot for 600 years in Ohio,” he said. “But I think Bernie Moreno is the kind of guy who can beat him.”

Jordan has been traveling the country working to elect Republicans on the ballot. He spent time recently in North Carolina, where he was impressed by the high caliber of the GOP’s House candidates, singling out Laurie Buckhout, Brad Knott, Mark Harris, Addison McDowell, and Pat Harrigan in particular. Jordan will also campaign for Rep. Ron Estes (R., Kans.) next weekend. 

“We’re just trying to make sure we keep the House because if the president wins and we win the Senate, but we don’t keep the House, how do you make sure that the tax cuts get reauthorized?” Jordan said. “Or that we get back to common sense energy policy? That we secure the border? That we stop the weaponization of these agencies against the American people? So that’s why it’s important we win.”

Should Trump win, Jordan wants to use reconciliation to “reauthorize the tax cuts and put in there as much as you can relative to the border and to securing the border and to common sense energy policy when it comes to the regulations that Biden’s done that hurt our energy production here in the country.”

When he’s not formally campaigning, Jordan merges business with pleasure, as he did when he recently joined Trump at a UFC match. Jordan prefers UFC fighters who came up through a traditional wrestling background, such as Bo Nickal. When asked about how to ensure that commentators like Joe Rogan, alongside the roaring crowds at the UFC who were mocked by the New York Times for being heavily male, vote red in November, he suggested that “I don’t know if you get them. I think it’s just happening. You saw David Sacks did that long thread on Twitter about why he’s for Trump.”

COVID misinformation, weaponized government, and big tech censorship are just three of the issues Jordan spends his time on. They’re also, in his estimation, “why you’re seeing so many people say, ‘Wait a minute, I think I’m going to be voting a little more Republican than I was in the past,’” this November.

We’ll know if he’s right in a few months.

Below is a transcript of the Washington Reporter’s interview with Rep. Jim Jordan, lightly edited for clarity.

Washington Reporter:
What are you seeing as you hit the campaign trail for Republicans across the country?

Jim Jordan:
I’m in North Carolina right now. We’re helping candidates. We’re gonna get a bunch of new members from North Carolina. We did five events. On Thursday night and Friday. We are now driving across the state now for another one. So we’re helping all these guys. It feels really good down here. This is one of the seven states that President Trump won in both 2016 and 2020 and we got great candidates in the new district lines. We’re gonna pick up a number of seats. So we did an event for Addison McDowell, then for Pat Harrigan, then we did one last night for Mark Harris. We had like 300 people at this dinner last night. Brad Knott was in there too. So we’re driving across the state for Laurie Buckhout. She’s over on the coast and we’re going to be on the Outer Banks. It feels really good. People are excited.

Washington Reporter:
On the Weaponization Committee, one of the highest profile committees in Congress right now, you called for Alvin and Bragg and Matthew Colangelo to testify before the select committee. If they don’t show up, would you issue a subpoena? Do you think that’s necessary?

Jim Jordan:
Yeah, I mean, everything’s on the table, if they’re not going to. We got a notice yesterday and we’re communicating with them. But if they don’t come, we will. If they’re not willing to come voluntarily, we will subpoena them.

Washington Reporter:
One of your big priorities is oversight of big tech censorship. What else is coming down the pipeline on this front with big tech censorship? You just requested that Anthony Fauci come before the Judiciary Committee for a transcribed interview about censorship during the coronavirus pandemic. Has anything surprised you that you’ve learned?

Jim Jordan:
The thing that always surprises us a little bit is it’s always worse than you thought. And it wasn’t just that it wasn’t just Twitter Files. It was the Facebook files. It was the YouTube Files, it was even the pressure for Amazon to take down books. Call it a virtual book ban. The pressure coming from the government to big tech. I even read this into the Fauci hearing earlier this week, where we had this internal communication from Mark Zuckerberg with Nick Clegg and Sheryl Sandberg, the top people at Meta, where he said, “can we talk about the fact that the White House was trying to get us to downplay the lab leak theory?” And then of course, Fauci tried to deny that he was part of downplaying the lab leak theory, which is almost laughable. It’s always worse than we thought, and you know what the success is? 60 Minutes went after me and our committee’s work. And there’s been these stories written where, “oh, it’s tough now on college campuses to continue the disinformation effort and we’re finding it hard because of the work of the Weaponization Committee.” Well, that’s exactly what we want. They write these stories as if somehow that’s a negative against us. That’s what we want. We want this ridiculous misinformation, disinformation, malinformation industry out there, we think it’s a bunch of garbage. We feel like that’s been one of the key successes is that reaction we’re getting from the people who were involved in the censorship efforts.

Washington Reporter:
Did anything surprise you about what Fauci talked about, with the censorship efforts in particular?

Jim Jordan:
It’s funny, I talked about this at this event last evening. Basically, everything Fauci said turned out to be wrong. I call it the list of the eight lies. He told us that it wasn’t our tax money spent at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. He admitted to the hearing this week but initially he said “oh, no, that wasn’t our money spent over there at the Wuhan lab. Couldn’t have been gain of function at the Wuhan lab.” Sure looks like it was. It didn’t come from the lab. Well, I think most people with common sense feel like it did. They told us the vaccinated couldn’t get it, the vaccinated couldn’t transmit it, they told us masks work. They told us the six foot distancing issue was based on science, and the one they downplayed so much was this idea that “oh, it’s the first virus in human history that there’s no such thing as natural immunity for” because they downplayed the natural immunity issue as well. So you saw that same kind of arrogance come through in the hearing. But the biggest takeaway for me was the fact that he actually said he still has an open mind about what this thing came from. Well, he was sure trying to stress one of the theories over the lab leak theory, certainly trying to stress the zoonotic, the natural origin theory over the others, but yet he sat there at the hearing and said that that wasn’t the case, which nobody buys.

Washington Reporter
And so this is actually something that’s coming up on the campaign trail in states like North Carolina — is that correct?

Jim Jordan:
You’re talking with Republican and conservative voters to people who are supporting a Republican candidate, because they remember Dr. Fauci. Because of Dr. Fauci, someone who’s never put his name on the ballot, never been elected to anything, he was telling us all kinds of things and how it changed our lives. Americans were told they couldn’t go to church, couldn’t go to work, couldn’t go to school. And Fauci was leading the charge on that. You saw the audio tape excerpt that was played by Congressman Rich McCormack, where Fauci basically reiterated that you got to make life tough on Americans. Well, that’s not how our constitutional system works. That’s still on Americans minds because every single liberty we enjoy under the First Amendment was attacked by the Biden administration during COVID. Americans were told they couldn’t go to church, your First Amendment right to practice your faith. I always use the example. I spoke to the New Mexico Republican Party in Amarillo, Texas two years ago because they had to go to Texas to get the freedom to assemble because the Democrat governor would let them do it in their own darn state where they pay taxes. If you wanted to talk to your member of Congress for a couple of years, you had to do that at home because Nancy Pelosi wouldn’t let you in your own Capitol.

Washington Reporter:
I’m still the only reporter to have ever covered that. It’s crazy that Democrats got a free pass on this from national and local journalists.

Jim Jordan:
Good for you, that ticked me off. I mean, good for you. And then, of course, remember what Jen Psaki said from the press room. I’m paraphrasing a little bit, but she said the Biden administration is working with the big tech companies. Most Americans now get their information from social media platforms. We’re working with them to limit the information that Americans see, and it’s like the press person is telling the press in the press room that she’s for limiting the press. It was pretty frightening stuff. And then of course, we know what they did to speech because that’s been the focus. Where, take down this tweet ASAP, third day the Biden administration, from the White House, and it’s a tweet about its tweet where Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says two sentences that are absolutely true sentences, nothing false about him and yet they want to take it down because it doesn’t communicate the message they want communicated.

Washington Reporter:
You recently referred Michael Cohen to the Department of Justice for prosecution. Why did you feel like that was a necessary move?

Jim Jordan:
Because he gave false information to the committee a few years ago, six different times. The biggest lie that everyone remembers is he said he didn’t want our jobs in the Trump White House in 2017. That’s just laughable, he wanted to be chief of staff or whatever, but there were other lies that he told during the course of his testimony. We felt it was important that everybody understand that. Because Alvin Bragg knew it already. Remember what Alvin Bragg said. First campaigns that if he gets elected, he’s going to go after President Trump. When he gets elected, he sees how bad this case is. And he actually made the statement “I cannot envision a world where I would indict President Trump and call Michael Cohen as a prosecution witness.” And then he turns around and does that very thing, literally, only after President Trump announces he’s running for president. So it just underscored how political it was. And so we had Robert Costello come in and testify and lay out that. We thought it’s important that everyone understand that this guy had lied to Congress multiple times as well.

Washington Reporter:
You led the way on referring the family members of President Biden to the DOJ for criminal referrals. Why?

Jim Jordan:
Yeah, same thing. Simple thing is you got to testify in front of Congress, you got to say things that are accurate. You can’t you can’t try to mislead Congress, which is exactly what certainly Hunter Biden tried to do with his whole “it was a different name, it was a different Zhao, wasn’t the John Smith you think it was, it was a different John Smith.” So that’s the argument. And of course I’m using the example of the one where he wrote “I’m sitting beside my father, can you get us the money?” That was sent to Zhao, he tried to tell us during the deposition “that’s a common name and China,” as if it wasn’t the same John Smith. Come on. And then we have other testimony and documents that show it was in fact exactly what everyone thought, and not how he tried to describe it. And so we felt that’s important for people to understand. We did a referral, the Justice Department and of course with James Biden it was all about this meeting with Tony Bobulinski. That did or didn’t take place. Well, it certainly did, and Bobulinski’s actually stood up where James Biden’s didn’t.

Washington Reporter:
Looking ahead toward the end of the year, what do you want your top three legacy items to be as your accomplishments as Judiciary Chairman from this Congress?

Jim Jordan:
We’d love to pass the bill we passed eight or nine months ago. We’d love to get this venue bill which says that if you have these rogue state prosecutors go after former presidents, former vice presidents, they have to build it at the federal court with a different jury pool. We think that makes good sense and it would in essence stop this kind of political warfare, this lawfare that we’re seeing from Fani Willis and from Bragg so that’s one. Jack Smith, this idea that no funding should be able to go to any special counsel that hasn’t been approved by the United States Senate is an avenue to deal with that. Frankly, this idea that the FBI is getting new headquarters is something that we fought. Both Speaker McCarthy and I’ve said multiple times we wouldn’t do it and then unfortunately, on the appropriation bill, one main reason I voted against the appropriation bill for the big omnibus spending bill is the idea that the FBI, which has retaliated against whistleblowers, is gonna get a new headquarters. It’s stupid. So stopping that is probably a third that I think it’s really important as we head into this appropriations season. But I look at the wins we’ve gotten. The fact that there’s no longer a Disinformation Governance Board is because we made such a big deal of it, and then people like you in the media made such a big deal of it. And there’s no longer Nina Jankowicz running a Disinformation Governance Board in the United States Government, praise the Lord for that. This idea that the IRS no longer makes unannounced visits to American citizens’ homes, Danny Werfel announced tha eight, nine, ten ago. And of course his reason was, “we’re doing this for the safety of our agents.” Baloney. They’re doing it because we caught them knocking on Matt Taibbi’s door at the very moment that he’s testifying in front of our committee. And we actually had an agent do this to a constituent of ours, come to her door and it turned out that the police thought he was some scam artist, local police did. He was actually an IRS agent. So we feel like we’ve gotten those kinds of wins. And then I mentioned earlier, that when the Kate Starbirds and these people who work at these universities that are taking government money and working with big tech and big government, censor Americans, and they’re complaining, they’re going on 60 Minutes and say, “oh, this is terrible. We were not getting the support we need on college campuses and financially to do this and continue this effort.” Good. That’s what we want because it’s censorship, plain and simple.

Washington Reporter:
Another item that you’ve been working on is the impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden. What’s the latest with that?

Jim Jordan:
We continue to put together all the facts that we know. I’ve said before, the entire time we’ve done this, I think the case is compelling. But obviously, it’ll be a decision for the full House of Representatives, particularly the Republican conference, on if we in fact move forward with actual articles. We’re in the middle of battling with the Attorney General on the audio tape of Special Counsel Hur’s interview with Joe Biden and the audio tape with the book writer, the ghost writer, Mark Zwonitzer. We think that information is important for our investigation, because it’s the best evidence and we think they’ve already waived any privilege when they gave us the transcript. So we’re in the middle of that fight. I’m all for holding the attorney general in contempt if he won’t give us that information.

Washington Reporter:
For giving you the actual tape, you mean?

Jim Jordan:
Yeah, give us a tape. Yes. He’s given us a transcript of the audio tape. So we’ve already passed the contempt resolution out of the committee. And I’m hopeful that we can pass it on the floor if he’s not willing to turn off the audio tape. And then we are in a battle with the DOJ over a couple of witnesses we think are important that Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler are the whistleblowers we have identified who were part of the Hunter Biden investigation. Mark Daly, Jack Morgan, two of the tax attorneys at the DOJ.

Washington Reporter:
How do you approach working together with other high profile committees, like the Oversight Committee?

Jim Jordan:
We try to work together as a team. Before big hearings we actually get together, we actually practice to figure out what lines of questioning make sense. Sometimes we actually will change the sequence of who’s going to go first, who’s gonna fill in here, we’re gonna do this subject first. We try to coordinate that. And we try to ask the question, how can we have the most effective hearing here, if we have Chris Wray or Merrick Garland or somebody in front of us? Steve Dettelbach, the head of the ATF, for some of those where we can let the American people know that, here’s the issue, and here’s what we’re trying to get accomplished. So we try to plan it all out and we just have a great staff. Just good lawyers, good staff who work really hard. I think we’ve done 97 different subpoenas. We’ve had 140 transcribed interviews or depositions. It’s not just about numbers and volume. We’re just trying to get the information to the American people and then use that information to look for legislative ways to fix things and make things better for the country and to use the power of the purse, the appropriation process to make things better. So I think it’s the same key people working, working hard and trying to do what we told the American people who were gonna do.

Washington Reporter:
Were there lessons that you learned from being the ranking member on Oversight in the past that govern how you want to be the Chairman of Judiciary?

Jim Jordan:
Obviously when you go from ranking member you’re reacting to what the Democrats are doing. When you go to the majority, then you’re driving the agenda more. So what I look at is, we have a constitutional duty to do oversight. We should do it as vigorously as robustly as we can. We have definitely done that. Democrats always accused us of well, you spent this much money you’ve done this many things. But we should do all that in a way that’s consistent with the Constitution which I would argue that Democrats don’t always follow that last step, and that’s how we do it. And we try to do it in a fair way, but we’re going to be aggressive and make sure we work hard at getting it done.

Washington Reporter:
You’re in the Wrestling Hall of Fame. Is there a wrestling match that you played in or coached, or any particular wrestling move that you look back on that reflects the politics of today or that you are particularly proud of?

Jim Jordan:
Competition’s important and I feel like there’s so much downplaying of competition today in our culture. I think competition’s just critical. For me, the biggest match ever was in ninth grade, state tournament and I was able to win the state term as a freshman. Because that’s the first time it all worked where I had the goal, I had the objective and worked hard, and I tell people I won mostly because I was ignorant. I didn’t know that freshmen weren’t supposed to be state champions. But my dad told me if you set goals and work hard, good things can happen. Because freshmen, particularly from our part of the state, we were downstate, weren’t supposed to beat the guys from Cleveland and Akron and Canton, in Northeast Ohio where wrestling was really really big and strong. But it worked and I won and I won. I tell people one, mostly because I was kind of ignorant. I just do what my dad told me. So that was by far the biggest win. The second biggest one was my junior year in college when I reached my goal in college and was able to win the NCAA tournament. And so those are the two matches that stand out.

Washington Reporter:
The RNC will be in Wisconsin this summer. What do you predict will happen in Ohio, in November — or in the rest of the Midwest?

Jim Jordan:
We haven’t been to Wisconsin yet this year. I’ve been there several times for Scott Fitzgerald and Tom Tiffany and other members. But I feel good in Ohio. I think we got a great US Senate candidate. Bernie Moreno is just tremendous. He’s doing a great job on the stump. President Trump won our state by 8.5 percent in 2016, 8.5 percent in 2020. I think he’s gonna win more. That’s just the feel you get on the ground in 2024. We used to be the bellwether state but we are now a Trump Republican state. So I feel really good about the President in Ohio. I feel strong about Moreno. He’s got a tough opponent in Sherrod Brown, who has been on the ballot for 600 years in Ohio. But I think Bernie Moreno is the kind of guy who can beat him. He’s doing a good job. And then you know, the President is winning here in North Carolina. He’s up in all the other key states with the exception of Wisconsin, which is interesting. So it’s great that the convention’s there, I think we’re going to have a great convention. I think he’s going to win. I really do. I think he’s going to win. I think we’re going to win the Senate. And I think we’re going to keep the House.

Washington Reporter:
Are there candidates you’ve met around the country who have particularly impressed you and who you think would do a good job working with you in Congress?

Jim Jordan:
In North Carolina, Pat Harrigan was a Special Forces guy who’s running. Addison McDowell was a staffer for Ted Budd. Ted, you know, is a conservative senator, I think he’s great. I like them all. Brad Knott is a former assistant US Attorney. Young sharp guy, you can tell a sharp legal mind. So there are these candidates we’re meeting down here who are just really good, really good folks, and then we’re helping some of our colleagues. Next weekend I’m going to be in Kansas with Ron Estes, who’s a great member. We’re just trying to make sure we keep the House because if the president wins and we win the Senate, but we don’t keep the House, how do you make sure that the tax cuts get reauthorized? That we get back to common sense energy policy? That we secure the border? That we stop the weaponization of these agencies against the American people? So that’s why it’s important we win.

Washington Reporter:
I appreciate you sacrificing the golf game for a weekend but you know, hopefully these guys when they join you next January, will play golf with you.

Jim Jordan?
Do you golf?

Washington Reporter:
I play mini golf, I’m more of a mini golf guy. You mentioned tax code reauthorization. What will happen with that? Biden wants Trump tax cuts to vanish. Do you think that will happen?

Jim Jordan:
We got to win and then reconciliation, you reauthorize the tax cuts and you put in there as much as you can relative to the border and to securing the border and to common sense energy policy when it comes to the regulations that Biden’s done that hurt our energy production here in the country. So you do as much as you can and reconciliation but that’s why we’ve got to win the House, the Senate and the White House so that those things can happen and then your economy starts burning and churning and burning like it was under under President Trump

Washington Reporter:
Let’s talk UFC. Do you have a specific UFC fighter who you think embodies the characteristics that you think are important in politics and life?

Jim Jordan:
We like the guys who start from a wrestling background. Some of the fighters come from more of a striking, boxing background or mixed martial arts. But we like the guys who come up with wrestling. Both of my boys wrestle for the Badgers as well. We were able to go to the big fight in Miami. When the President first called and asked, we’re gonna go to the one in Vegas because our favorite guy is Bo Nickal, who is a three time national champ for Penn State, he’s a Texan. He comes from a collegiate wrestling background. But that didn’t work out so we went to the one in Miami, had a great time but yeah, Bo Nickal is probably my favorite, that’s probably the same with my boys.

Washington Reporter:
Joe Rogan is obviously a big voice and has a huge platform. He’s becoming red-pilled in part because of COVID. How do you get high profile people like Rogan, and the fans who are screaming Trump’s name at the UFC match that you just attended with him, to actually vote Republican in November?

Jim Jordan:
I don’t know if you get them. I think it’s just happening. You saw David Sacks did that long thread on Twitter about why he’s for Trump. He just had a fundraising event for President Trump. I think more and more people, when they see the censorship, when they see the attacks on your First Amendment liberties. And they saw what happened during COVID. I said this last night at the speech. Fauci tried to tell us it wasn’t from the lab. It came from nature. Fauci said it came from a bat to a pangolin to a hippopotamus to Joe Rogan. And then we all get COVID. Nobody believes it. Because this thing probably happened in the lab. I think it’s just happening. People see President Trump as a guy who is just right in so many ways. He’s just American. Like I told the group last night, President Trump hates to lose. That is a great American quality. Americans aren’t sissy wimpy losers. Americans are winners. That’s how we think. That doesn’t mean we always win but that’s how Americans think. And they see that in Trump and then they saw what happened during COVID. That whole dynamic, that is why you’re seeing so many people say, “Wait a minute, I think I’m gonna be voting a little more Republican than I was in the past.”