WASHINGTON — Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is the only candidate in the race for House speaker, but he's still struggling to win over enough support from rank-and-file Republicans to get elected in a formal floor vote.
Jordan, 59, threw his name into the ring after the House ousted Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as speaker this month. Since House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., failed to garner sufficient backing, Jordan has been the remaining contender for speaker.
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Jordan has served in the House since 2007 and has held several leadership roles, including chairman of the House Freedom Caucus and ranking member on both the House Oversight and Judiciary committees. He is now chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
Democrats say that if Republicans choose Jordan as speaker, they plan to tie endangered GOP House members to him — and all his hard-line views.
Here are five key things to know about Jordan:
Looming college wrestling scandal
Jordan has been a polarizing figure on Capitol Hill over the last several years, and he has come under scrutiny for his previous job as a wrestling coach. In 2018, former wrestlers he coached at Ohio State University accused him of having failed to stop the team's doctor from molesting them and other students. Jordan, who was the university's assistant wrestling coach from 1986 to 1994, has repeatedly said he knew nothing of the abuse until former students began speaking out.
Four of the wrestlers who made the accusations said last week that he shouldn't be speaker of the House.
"Do you really want a guy in that job who chose not to stand up for his guys?” said former OSU wrestler Mike Schyck, one of the hundreds of former athletes and students who say they were sexually abused by school doctor Richard Strauss and have sued the university. "Is that the kind of character trait you want for a House speaker?"
Jan. 6 involvement
Jordan has been a longtime ally of Trump, who endorsed him for speaker, and he was involved in Trump's efforts to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The now-defunct House Jan. 6 committee said in its final report that Jordan was among several lawmakers who had "materially relevant communications with Donald Trump or others in the White House" who also failed to comply with the panel's subpoenas.
"Representative Jordan was a significant player in President Trump’s efforts. He participated in numerous post-election meetings in which senior White House officials, Rudolph Giuliani, and others, discussed strategies for challenging the election, chief among them claims that the election had been tainted by fraud," the committee report said.
The committee said that on Jan. 2, 2021, Jordan led a conference call in which he and other members of Congress discussed with Trump strategies to delay the joint session on Jan. 6 to certify the electoral votes solidifying Joe Biden's victory.
According to the report, Jordan spoke to Trump by phone "at least twice" on Jan. 6, but it said he has provided inconsistent statements about the number of times they spoke that day and what they discussed.
Founding the Freedom Caucus
Jordan was a co-founder of the hard-line Freedom Caucus , which formed in 2015, and he was its first chairman until 2017.
The Freedom Caucus developed a reputation for rebelling against traditional House Republican leadership and causing intraparty drama. A number of the group's members, for example, issued threats in 2015 to oust John Boehner as speaker of the House, especially because of his bipartisan deals to fund the government and prevent shutdowns. Ultimately, Boehner voluntarily resigned from the post and from Congress that September after months of pressure and opposition from far-right lawmakers.
For several years, the group largely pushed a campaign to repeal or defund Obamacare, and while Trump was president, its members advocated his positions and policy proposals in Congress.
Key player in the Benghazi hearings
Jordan served on the House committee that investigated the 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, where four Americans were killed, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.
Jordan was among several GOP members who grilled former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for 11 hours when she was running for president in 2015 about the attack and the State Department's role leading up to it.
The committee's final report detailed interagency and bureaucratic failures but did not blame Clinton for the Americans’ deaths.
Running investigations in Biden and his family
As the current chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Jordan has been his caucus' chief investigator of Biden and his family, running probes into both the president and his son Hunter Biden. His panel was also among the three congressional committees McCarthy tasked with opening an impeachment inquiry into the president.
The House Oversight Committee held its first hearing in the process in September, at which a panel of Republican-picked witnesses said that while there is no evidence the president committed a crime, more bank records are needed from him and his son to gather more information.
