(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . House Republican threatens to defund the police if they keep investigating Donald Trump [1] ['Daily Kos Staff', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-02 In this universe, Jim Jordan seems to exist solely to declare that whatever crookery Donald Trump was last caught in is no big deal or was a scheme by Trump's ever-devious enemies. It is what gives him sustenance. And Donald Trump being indicted for crimes related to the ex-president's campaign-trail hush money payments to a porn star (a real phrase and a real news event, in this dismal universe) has been sending Jim Jordan into fits. His latest proposal to solve this problem: Well now, maybe we're just going to cut off money to the FBI and other law enforcement agencies until they decide to stop all these investigations of Dear Leader. x Jordan: We’re going to have to look at the appropriations process and limit funds going to some of these agencies… Bartiromo: So the DOJ and the FBI? Jordan: yeah pic.twitter.com/9TyPvkVabP — Acyn (@Acyn) April 2, 2023 Wow. Listening to Jim Jordan talk for 22 seconds just doesn't get any easier, does it. In any event, Jordan's problem is that while he has at least some power to sabotage investigations of Trump crimes conducted by the House of Representatives, he and other sedition-backing House Republicans have considerably less power when it comes to shielding Dear Ridiculous Leader from state-level crimes. Jordan is currently demanding Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg turn over the entire case files relating to Bragg's investigation, another transparent ploy to turn that evidence directly over to Trump himself, but if Bragg and other state prosecutors resist Jordan there's a limit to how much Jordan can meddle. Jordan's only real threat, then, is to tie the criminal investigations of Dear Leader to the appropriations process in an act of brazen crookery. What's this, law enforcement has gotten their hands on evidence of criminal acts by Donald Trump that House Republicans were not able to fully cover up? Then those law enforcement agencies had better un-find that evidence real quick, says Jordan, or we'll start cutting their budgets to the point where they can't prosecute anybody. Republicanism! While there is at least a little bit of humor to be had in the most pro-sedition wing of Republicanism jumping to "defund the police" as their go-to answer for defending Golf Boy, Ruler of Them All, it's probably more important to sit and stew on just how nakedly crooked House Republicans have become. Jordan's demand that Bragg turn over every detail of his case to House Republicans was crooked from the moment he proposed it; now Jordan is linking funding for law enforcement agencies explicitly to the outcomes of investigations into the coup-attempting former president. It's very very crooked! It's about as crooked as you can get! Jordan's getting Very Damn Close to what would already count as obstruction of justice, which yet again raises questions on just what big-boy crimes members of Congress are allowed to commit while in office and which ones they aren't. Does the Constitution allow Jim Jordan to threaten state prosecutors who investigate Jim Jordan's political allies? Does it not? This whole timeline would appear to have stemmed from a constitutional scholar getting their hands on a dried monkey's paw and muttering "I want to be on television more often." Or maybe this was inevitable; once House Republicans decided that whatever Donald Trump last said was more important than the rule of law itself, it was inevitable that it would devolve into this. RELATED STORIES: House Republicans demand Bragg turn over all documents pertaining to possible Trump indictment House Republicans demanding Bragg's evidence against Trump have been coordinating with Trump himself House Republicans pondering new bill allowing Trump to commit whatever crimes he wants [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/2/2161656/-House-Republican-threatens-to-defund-the-police-if-they-keep-investigating-Donald-Trump Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/