After ducking the question multiple times, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) admitted Tuesday on Fox News\u00a0that he spoke to then-President Donald Trump on Jan. 6, but he refused to disclose what they discussed.<\/p>\n
Jordan, a staunch Trump ally, was rejected last week from joining\u00a0the House select committee appointed to investigate the U.S. Capitol riot after his name was put forward by House Republican leadership.<\/p>\n
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she knocked back Jordan and one other of the five GOP picks, Jim Banks of Indiana, to protect the integrity of the investigation. The two men were among those who\u00a0voted to overturn the presidential election\u00a0based on Trump\u2019s fiction about massive voter fraud and have both downplayed the reality of what happened on Jan. 6.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis committee is obviously going to go down a number of different roads about who knew what when, who was talking to coordinators of the protests. Did you talk to the former president that day?\u201d Fox News\u2019 Bret Baier asked Jordan in an interview following the first day of the inquiry.<\/p>\n
Jordan said he had spoken to Trump \u201cumpteen times.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean on Jan. 6,\u201d Baier pressed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI talk to the president. I never talk about what we talk about. I just don\u2019t think that\u2019s appropriate, just like I don\u2019t talk about what happens in Republican conferences. So I talked to the president numerous times. I continue to talk to the president,\u201d Jordan continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. I mean on Jan. 6, congressman?\u201d Baier asked again.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d Jordan responded. \u201cI mean I\u2019ve talked the president so many, I can\u2019t remember all the days I have talked to him, but I have certainly talked to the president.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked to share more about it, Jordan changed course to talk about the need for testimony at the hearings about \u201cthe security posture\u201d on that day.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not the first time Jordan has mentioned a conversation with Trump on the day of the riot. In May, he rejected the idea that he or other Republicans should be subpoenaed to testify about conversations with Trump, saying: \u201cI didn\u2019t do anything wrong \u2014 I talked to the president. I talk to the president all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked at the time by The Washington Post to clarify if he spoke with Trump on the day of the riot, though, his office did not respond.<\/p>\n
Jordan and other Republican allies to the former president could be potential witnesses to how Trump and his advisers were behaving during the attack.<\/p>\n
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), one of two Republicans on the select committee, said during a \u201cGood Morning America\u201d appearance Tuesday that Jordan may be called to testify.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s somebody who was involved in a number of meetings in the lead-up to what happened on 6 January, involved in planning for 6 January, certainly for the objections that day, as he said publicly, so he may well be a material witness,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n