Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) blasted what he called the double standard of his Democrat colleagues on the House floor on Wednesday, reminding Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) that he stood as the “first objector” to the results during the same process in 2017.
“In his opening remarks, the Democrat chair of the Rules Committee said that Republicans last week voted to overturn the results of an election,” Jordan began.
“Guess who the first objector was on January 6, 2017? First objector. The Democrat chair of the Rules Committee. And guess which state he objected to? Alabama. The very first state called,” Jordan said, noting Trump won the state by a massive margin.
“They can object to Alabama in 2017 but tell us we can’t object to Pennsylvania in 2021,” he continued, highlighting several of the main concerns over the Keystone State’s election process:
Pennsylvania where the state’s Supreme Court just unilaterally extended the election to Friday? Pennsylvania where the Secretary of State unilaterally changed the rules — went around the legislature in an unconstitutional fashion. Pennsylvania where county clerks in some counties … let people fix their ballots against the law. Cure their ballots, their mail-in ballots — [a] direct violation of the law. And they tell us we tried to overturn the election.
Jordan continued, reminding his colleagues that the individual managing impeachment for the Democrats, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), too, objected to electoral votes in 2017.
“Americans are tired of the double standards. They are so tired of it,” the Ohio Republican said. “Democrats objected to more states in 2017 than Republicans did last week, but somehow we’re wrong.”
“Democrats can raise bail for rioters and looters this summer but somehow when Republicans condemn all the violence, the violence this summer, the violence last week, somehow we’re wrong,” he said.
Democrats, he continued, have investigated President Trump for four years and already tried to impeach him once, yet they will “not look at an election that 80 million Americans — half the electorate, 80 million, Republicans and Democrats — have their doubts about.”
Jordan ultimately said he does not know where this goes but urged his colleagues to defeat the impeachment resolution, as others did even before the session began.
McGovern, who earlier in the day accused Trump of organizing and inciting the events that unfolded on January 6, addressed Jordan’s remarks immediately after and claimed that he and his Democrat colleagues objected to electoral votes in 2017 as a “protest vote to raise concerns about what of all our intelligence agencies had stated clearly that Russia interfered in our election.”
He further attempted to defend their move, claiming that Democrats acknowledged that Trump won and adding that Hillary Clinton conceded.
“None of us pushed conspiracy theories,” he continued, failing to mention that the Trump-Russia collusion narrative that Democrats vehemently pursued proved to be false.
The bottom line, McGovern added, is “this Capitol was stormed” and “people died because of the big lies that were being told by this president and by too many people on the other side of the aisle.”
McGovern said Republicans are attempting to make “false equivalences” and concluded that Trump “instigated an attempted coup in this country.”
“People died. Everybody should be outraged whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican. If this is not an impeachable offense, I don’t know what the hell is,” he added. ‘This president is not fit to remain in office.”
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