The termination of Jim Jordan's Speaker candidacy and the Ken Chesebro plea deal provide two X-ray views into the internal rotten core of the Republican Party and the mindset of its members. Both views confirm the willingness of Republican voters to threaten violence against ANYONE – including elected officials – to support their adherents and positions. Both views confirm the level of calculations public figures – again, elected or otherwise – are having to perform about ANYTHING said in public about those same adherents or those that would prevent them from obtaining or retaining power.
Jim Jordan SHOULD have never been considered for the Speaker role, for numerous reasons. Primarily, he appears to have played a role with Trump's coup team in planning the procedural chaos of January 6, 2021. He subsequently refused to testify about his actions regarding January 6 under a subpoena issued by his own legislative body, the US House of Representatives, he wanted to lead. He has never written or contributed to a single bill that has been enacted into law during his entire tenure.
Yet THOSE factors weren't enough to keep him from being nominated for the role and frankly had no bearing on his inability to win. Jordan lost his bid for the Speaker role because his nihilist behavior over his entire career has alienated him from nearly every member of the House of either party. Yet even with THAT background, he came within sixteen votes of winning the Speakership and becoming third in succession to the Presidency. Why?
Jordan's flamethrowing and obstructionism are wildly popular with the MAGA malignant base within the Republican Party. While he is unable to pass legislation or provide meaningful enlightenment in any committee hearing, he provides voice to the crazies in the MAGA sect and triggers enough activism on the part of that sect to drive fear into every Republican of being tossed out of their job not by a Democrat in a general election but an even crazier Republican in a primary.
Once Jordan failed on three votes and still failed to get the message, the Republicans decided to hold an ANONYMOUS vote behind closed doors to take a true temperature of the fevered caucus. The result? Jordan couldn't win even HALF the votes of fellow Republicans. He LOST, only winning 86 supporters against 122 voting for other candidates. On his first ballot in the full house, he needed 217 total votes, there were 220 Republicans present and he only won 200 votes.
Consider that for a moment. When forced to act in public, only 20 Republicans had the courage to vote their conviction. In private, there were actually 122 who felt he had no business holding the job. Why? It isn't just because they feared being out-crazied in a primary. Many had fear of reprisals online or in person from extremists within the party. As it turns out, those fears were COMPLETELY justified. Many of the NO votes from the first round were immediately subjected to threatening phone calls or emails not only to their congressional office but to family members as well. As the vote staggered through two more attempts, extremists attempted to extort support via calls from Fox News and similar extremist agitprop entities to holdouts, even as the list grew from vote to vote. One Republican Representative, Ken Buck of Colorado, claims his MAGA-lovin' landlord sent an eviction notice for Buck's local field office. Maybe Buck might want to speak with a lawyer to investigate the legality of lease discrimination based on political affiliation.
In the case of Chesebro, he and his lawyer managed to negotiate a plea deal that eliminated all charges except a single charge of conspiring to submit false documents and escaped with no jail time, five years probation, a fine and a requirement to write an apology to the people of the State of Georgia for his offense. In exchange, he agreed to testify truthfully / fully to a set of facts in a written proffer agreement with the prosecution in all subsequent phases of the case. As with Powell who landed a similar sweetheart deal the day before (not even a criminal charge, just one misdemeanor), no word came out about whether Chesebro had simultaneously reached a similar agreement with prosecutor Jack Smith in the federal case in DC for the actual January 6 insurrection.
The Chesebro deal also exposes the level of crazy at work within the Republican Party. Chesebro's lawyer, Scott Grubman was interviewed by Katie Phang on MSNBC on October 21, a day after the plea deal was reached. He stated Chesebro's team was prepared to go to trial but the agreement made a tolerable outcome the most likely outcome and allowed Chesebro to end the risk to his freedom and be home with his family. At that point, Phang (an attorney) pushed back. Phang's point, condensed for copyright purposes and brevity, was this:
Your client just didn't plead guilty to filing a false document. He pled guilty to filing a document he knew was false that was the cornerstone of the overall RICO charge. Your client admitted the Big Lie was a lie and that everything he was doing wasn't right.
Grubman pushed back. Again, condensed for copyright purposes and brevity:
My client never believed the Big Lie. If you asked him today who won the 2020 election, he would say Joe Biden. He pled guilty to a felony charge but it was the RICO charge that implied he was the architect of the scheme and that charge was removed. Have your listeners think about this… If Mr. Chesebro WAS the architect of the fake elector scheme or some scheme to bring down democracy, would the District Attorney of Fulton County have offered him probation and first offender status? I think the answer is no and if you asked the DA, she would say no as well.
The most pertinent part of Grubman's response to this commentary came next:
While Mr. Chesebro did take responsibility for the false document charge, he did not implicate anyone else. He implicated himself in the false documents charge and while he is required to go testify if called by the state – and Mr. Chesebro is a man of his word and he will go testify truthfully if called by the state – the state's gonna have to decide if they think Mr. Chesebro's testimony will help them and if they believe it will help them, well they'll call him and he will testify. At the same time, if he is called by a defendant, he will come testify and testify truthfully.
At that point, Phang pushed back hard and reminded Grubman his client had to provide a recorded proffer as part of his deal and clearly the prosecution would not have cut him a deal if he didn't have something worthy of use in their case. She asked him what Chesebro had provided in that proffer. Grubman responded with this (exact quote here):
I'm not at liberty to say exactly what he said, but here's what I'm at liberty to say. Someone asked me earlier. If you were Donald Trump, would you be worried? And I could personally honestly answer no. It's not that Mr. Chesebro is trying to protect Donald Trump or anyone else, he's not. He's ready to move on with his life. But, I was there in the proffer. Again I'm not going to say what was said because it is a confidential proffer but I can say that I personally do not believe the state will call him to testify on their behalf. If they do and if I am wrong, Mr Chesebro will be there, he will testify truthfully. I were the state, I would not call.
As an aside, props to the defense counsel for drawing the distinction between a standalone charge of "simply" being involved in filing a fraudulent document to a government entity and a RICO conspiracy charge with much greater implications for others and much greater penalties. The counsel's argument is further aided by the fact that it is possibly correct, though just technically correct. Based on publicly available information, Chesebro drafted his email regarding the alternate elector approach on December 6, 2020. The film A Storm Foretold created by two French journalists following Roger Stone for weeks prior to and after the election shows Roger Stone dictating a nearly identical concept on a conference call on November 5, two days PRIOR to Biden being declared the official winner of the election and a full MONTH prior to Chesebro's December 6, 2020 memo.
While Grubman's point might win points for being technically correct, as Phang pointed out, it's a distinction without merit to the real case. In fact, Chesebro pled guilty to a charge involving a document that as of now appears to have created enough appearance of legal weight to convince others within the conspiracy and the rubes in multiple states outside the conspiracy that the alternate electors approach had a scholarly, legal background.
The real insight from Grubman's statements during this appearance comes from analyzing the tightrope he is walking when making such appearances. It is not wise to attempt to publicly walk back his client's guilty plea by saying he only said it to escape prison. The terms of his deal likely allow prosecutors to re-instate charges if such comments are made by Chesebro or his counsel. It's also not wise to divulge details of his proffer because first, the plea terms require them to be kept private and second, Chesebro is banned from any communication that could color the perspective of other defendants, potential witnesses or potential jurors.
Of course, a much larger motivation stems from the desire by Chesebro to avoid being SEEN doing anything that actively aids the prosecution and impairs the case of Donald Trump. If the MAGA crowd has no qualms about threatening the life of a sitting US Representative or US Senator or their family, they clearly would have no qualms about going after a paper-pushing lawyer whose testimony might slam the cell door on Trump. With this audience in mind, Grubman wasn't content with merely painting the normal picture of a felon wanting to put it all behind him and "spend time with the family" while finding some new leaf to turn over. Grubman likely appeared in order to attempt to weaken any impression of positive support for the prosecution, nearly crossing the line of painting a client with a plea deal as a hostile witness for the prosecutors who just gave him a plea deal. The stakes are that high for those appearing to thwart the aims of the MAGA fringe.
It's useful to reflect upon this dynamic for an extended period in the current environment. Since the horrific terrorist attack by Hamas on dozens of towns in Israel and the killing of thousands of Israelis and Palestinians in reactions back and forth, Americans seem completely perplexed about how two factions could settle into such deadly political extremes when the consequences are so obvious. For insight, all Americans but particularly Republicans should spend more time examining our own system.
American late night shows have had a field day compiling a litany of Republican elected officials saying the "inside words" outside as they describe their own party's failure to govern. Assume for a moment SOME portion of people calling themselves "Republican" are still actually Republican like yesteryear. Maybe not Ike-era Republican. Maybe not Ford-era Republican or even GHWB-era Republican. This exercise will be restricted to the mythical moderate Republican of the twenty first century.
You see your party leader actively inviting Vladimir Putin to tamper with American media regarding our elections.
You see your party leader and President explicitly extort the head of state of an American ally for dirt on a political opponent as that leader attempts to ramp up for an attack from Russia. The resulting domestic political distraction resulting from that criminal "perfect call" likely convinced Russia it could invade Ukraine in 2022 without any response from a distracted America.
After twenty months of brutal warfare, an American ally is not only pushing back a Russian attack but bankrupting our foe and exposing their military weakness for the world to see without costing a single American soldier's life for a mere $45 billion dollars in military aid. That's $45 billion out of $1.8 trillion in total defense spending. That's TWO POINT FIVE PERCENT. Those are easily the most effective dollars America has spent avoiding the fray while disabling an enemy since Lend-Lease.
You see your party disregarding lawful subpoenas regarding armed attacks on the actual Capital building.
You see your party questioning ANY military support for Ukraine, despite their success at repelling Russia without American troops involved.
You see a SINGLE MEMBER of your party denying routine promotions for HUNDREDS of crucial senior leaders throughout the military out of spite over a single policy.
You now see your party unable to identify any Speaker candidate capable of winning even a majority within your caucus much less 217 supporters in the entire House.
The choices facing these mythical traditional Republicans are vanishing by the hour. Those choices are:
- Do nothing and leave the government paralyzed from initiating new spending for urgent aid packages for two allies and avoiding a debt ceiling shutdown days away.
- Accept another extremist Speaker candidate and vote them in while holding your nose, hoping to pass urgent bills before an extremist votes to vacate the chair again.
- Nominate a sane Republican Representative for Speaker and hope at least ten Democrats vote your way to yield a majority on the floor. Minimum qualification for this candidate for this scenario to have a prayer of happening is they cannot be an election denier and cannot have ties to any January 6, 2021 events.
- Have enough Republicans vote for Hakeem Jeffries to win Speaker, share some power for the remainder of the session with Democrats and send a message to the Republican fringe that they are being quarantined from the levers of power in the Republican Party and Congress.
There are enough disaffected / confused voters on the center side of the Democratic spectrum that might be convinced to vote for any Republican with courage enough to reject the far right fringe and move to the middle. Enough to enact meaningful, problem-solving legislation that might deflate some of the anti-government rhetoric pushed by the fringe. As it stands, every political instinct any so-called moderate Republican is following is only feeding oxygen to the fire on the fringe of the party. Maybe the so-called moderates are already too engulfed in smoke to see that.
If none of these options are appealing, why are these mythical moderate Republican not responding by hitting the eject button? By doing the right thing over the remaining months of the term, accepting a primary defeat or general election defeat in 2024 and walking away on January 1, 2025? By RESIGNING now and publicly calling out the conduct and policies they can no longer tolerate? Staying in Congress while not only refusing to hold their own fringe to account but rewarding it with power through appeasement is surrendering crucial control over the entire country to a political sect that is probably only 33% of the Republican faction and probably only 13.2% of the entire population. If moderate Republicans are not smart enough to figure out how to use the existing party mechanisms to squelch this anti-democratic fringe, the ONLY honorable alternative is to exit the party and allow the opposing party to control the government long enough for a replacement party to replace the mutant Republican Party of the present.
WTH
