Jim Jordan Gets Under Skin of CBS Anchor While Dodging Questions About Mueller Report

It takes a lot to get Margaret Brennan of Face the Nation worked up at an interview subject. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), come on down.

Brennan got a little heated with Jordan, one of President Trump’s most vocal supporters, as he ducked, dodged and ran out the clock on her questions about the Mueller report and the question of whether members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to affect the 2016 election. She was relatively patient at first as Jordan ran through the usual Republican complaints: that the report isn’t the bombshell Democrats hoped for and that Democrats are embarking on fishing expeditions to get Trump now that they are in charge of the House of Representatives.

It was the “fishing expeditions” charge that set off Brennan, who pushed back that since Mueller launched his investigation, he has indicted 34 people, including high-ranking officials such as Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort. So how, she asked, can Jordan continue saying that Mueller’s investigation was a witch hunt?

Jordan responded by asking Brennan, “What was the central charge of the special counsel investigation?” Brennan responded that it was to investigate “any links to coordination between Russia and anything related.” Jordan, with all the glee of the smartest kid in class who thinks he’s nailed his teacher on a mistake, said “No, it was any type of coordination or conspiracy or collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia to steal the election.”

Jordan is wrong and Brennan is right. The letter authorizing the appointment of Mueller as special counsel explicitly says the purpose of the investigation is to not only investigate “links and/or coordination between the Russian government” and members of the Trump campaign, but also, as Brennan stated, “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation.”

It’s not a phony witch hunt if you catch some actual witches.

Later, Brennan asked Jordan if he had any qualms about the moral and ethical implications of the report, even if Mueller has found some actions, such as Donald Trump Jr. meeting with Russians to get dirt on Hillary Clinton during the campaign or the president not revealing that he was pursuing business deals in Russia while running, not not rise to the level of being criminally indictable.

Jordan’s response is to talk about how great it has been for the American people to see taxes and regulations cut and get Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court.

And there, in a nutshell, is the justification for Republicans to look the other way on any illegal or even just morally depraved actions Trump and his circle may have taken to win the election. It is one Trump has taken up, when he asks how he can possibly be impeached when the economy is growing. None of it matters so long as the wealthy get their tax cuts.

Watch the interview up top, via CBS.