Mr. Gaetz, then 35, believed that the president’s allies in Congress needed a coordinated strategy to fight back against an investigation they viewed as deeply unfair and politically biased. He called Representative Jim Jordan, a conservative Republican from Ohio, and told him the party needed “to go play offense,” Mr. Gaetz recalled in an interview. The two men believed that Republican leaders, who publicly praised the appointment of Mr. Mueller, had been beaten into a defensive crouch by the unending chaos and were leaving Democrats unchecked to “pistol whip” the president with constant accusations about his campaign and Russia. So they began to investigate the investigators. Mr. Trump and his lawyers enthusiastically encouraged the strategy, which, according to some polls, convinced many Americans that the country’s law enforcement apparatus was determined to bring down the president. Within days of their conversation, Mr. Gaetz and Mr. Jordan drafted a letter to Mr. Sessions and Mr. Rosenstein, the first call for the appointment of a second special counsel to essentially reinvestigate Hillary Clinton for her handling of her emails while secretary of state - the case had ended in the summer of 2016 - as well as the origins of the F.B.I.’s investigation of Mr. Flynn and other Trump associates. The letter itself, with the signatures of only 20 House Republicans, gained little traction at first. But an important shift was underway: At a time when Mr. Trump’s lawyers were urging him to cooperate with Mr. Mueller and to tone down his Twitter feed, the president’s fiercest allies in Congress and the conservative news media were busy trying to flip the script on the federal law enforcement agencies and officials who began the inquiry into Mr. Trump’s campaign. Mr. Gaetz and Mr. Jordan began huddling with like-minded Republicans, sometimes including Representative Mark Meadows, a press-savvy North Carolinian close to Mr. Trump, and Representative Devin Nunes of California, the head of the House Intelligence Committee. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/19/us/politics/trump-investigations.html
Representatives Steve Scalise, the majority leader, and Jim Jordan, the Judiciary Committee chairman, had each landed more than a dozen endorsements by the afternoon as they raced toward a vote of Republicans tentatively scheduled for Tuesday. An election on the House floor could follow the next day, though the process could stretch much longer if no consensus can be reached. Then early Friday, former President Donald J. Trump, whose far-right acolytes in Congress helped lead the rebellion that has plunged the House into chaos, weighed in. “Congressman Jim Jordan has been a STAR long before making his very successful journey to Washington, D.C.,” Mr. Trump wrote in a Truth Social message that was posted at 12:13 a.m. on Friday. “He will be a GREAT Speaker of the House, & has my Complete & Total Endorsement!” https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/05/us/politics/scalise-jordan-trump-speaker.html
"Look, we have some absolute warriors," Trump told Fox News on April 26 when asked about his relationship with Congress, name-checking "Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows and Matt Gaetz and [Ron] DeSantis.”
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/07/trump-mueller-republican-warriors-congress-571562
Mr. Gaetz, then 35, believed that the president’s allies in Congress needed a coordinated strategy to fight back against an investigation they viewed as deeply unfair and politically biased.
He called Representative Jim Jordan, a conservative Republican from Ohio, and told him the party needed “to go play offense,” Mr. Gaetz recalled in an interview.
The two men believed that Republican leaders, who publicly praised the appointment of Mr. Mueller, had been beaten into a defensive crouch by the unending chaos and were leaving Democrats unchecked to “pistol whip” the president with constant accusations about his campaign and Russia.
So they began to investigate the investigators. Mr. Trump and his lawyers enthusiastically encouraged the strategy, which, according to some polls, convinced many Americans that the country’s law enforcement apparatus was determined to bring down the president.
Within days of their conversation, Mr. Gaetz and Mr. Jordan drafted a letter to Mr. Sessions and Mr. Rosenstein, the first call for the appointment of a second special counsel to essentially reinvestigate Hillary Clinton for her handling of her emails while secretary of state - the case had ended in the summer of 2016 - as well as the origins of the F.B.I.’s investigation of Mr. Flynn and other Trump associates.
The letter itself, with the signatures of only 20 House Republicans, gained little traction at first. But an important shift was underway: At a time when Mr. Trump’s lawyers were urging him to cooperate with Mr. Mueller and to tone down his Twitter feed, the president’s fiercest allies in Congress and the conservative news media were busy trying to flip the script on the federal law enforcement agencies and officials who began the inquiry into Mr. Trump’s campaign.
Mr. Gaetz and Mr. Jordan began huddling with like-minded Republicans, sometimes including Representative Mark Meadows, a press-savvy North Carolinian close to Mr. Trump, and Representative Devin Nunes of California, the head of the House Intelligence Committee.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/19/us/politics/trump-investigations.html
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Then early Friday, former President Donald J. Trump, whose far-right acolytes in Congress helped lead the rebellion that has plunged the House into chaos, weighed in.
“Congressman Jim Jordan has been a STAR long before making his very successful journey to Washington, D.C.,” Mr. Trump wrote in a Truth Social message that was posted at 12:13 a.m. on Friday. “He will be a GREAT Speaker of the House, & has my Complete & Total Endorsement!”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/05/us/politics/scalise-jordan-trump-speaker.html
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The likely next Speaker of the House was the guy in control of that Twitter account at the time, fyi
- Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) October 6, 2023
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