Jim Jordan wins GOP House Speaker nomination – latest

Rep Jim Jordan (R-OH) may be indicted as “an accessory after the fact” to former President Donald Trump and his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, legal observers have told Newsweek, noting that prosecutors would have to show that Mr Jordan’s claims were part of a larger conspiracy.

An adjunct professor of law at New York University, Peter Shane, told the outlet that the First Amendment doesn’t protect against intentionally false statements.

“Laws against fraud, perjury, and defamation, for example, are not unconstitutional,” he said.

“The First Amendment would make it difficult to uphold a prosecution of Jordan based solely on his speech unless it could be shown to be part and parcel of some larger criminal act,” he added.

“If it could be shown that Jordan was part of a conspiracy to defraud the United States of the sort charged against Trump in his DC indictment, and his false statements were made in furtherance of that conspiracy, the First Amendment would not preclude using his statements as evidence,” Mr Shane said.

The focus has returned to Mr Jordan as he was the only challenger to Mr Scalise, with the supporters of the Ohioan noting his conservative pedigree as a former chair of the Republican Study Committee and the House Freedom Caucus, adding that he has become less and less of a thorn in the side of GOP leadership in the last few years.

Rep Richard Hudson (R-NC) said in a statement on Friday that “we must unite behind one leader with the integrity, the ability and the vision to lead us. I believe that Jim Jordan is that leader and I ask my colleagues to join me now”.

The House Republican conference met again on Friday morning as they attempted to get over the so far insurmountable divisions within the caucus.

The chaos began last week when then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was ousted after eight Republicans voted with all the Democrats to remove him after a motion to vacate was triggered by Rep Matt Gaetz (R-FL).

“We had a process and we had a nominee and people stabbed him in the back,” Rep Pat Fallon (R-TX) said, according to NBC News. “So that’s not something to be proud of.”

Mike Pence said on Friday that it was a “breach of trust” for some Republicans not to back Steve Scalise after he was nominated to be speaker.

“It’s time for them to step up … Get it done this week because the days are only becoming more dangerous and more perilous,” he said.

“The adults in the room on Capitol Hill … ought to sit some people down. Just ask them if they want to be on the team … I give no quarter to those that are sowing chaos in the Congress today,” he added.

Rep Jim Jordan (R-OH) has secured a majority of the GOP votes for speaker to grasp the nomination but he was unable to reach the 217 votes he needs from his caucus to win a vote of the full House.

Mr Jordan beat challenger Rep Austin Scott (R-GA) by 124 votes to 81 on Friday afternoon, according to Politico.

This comes after Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) gave up his attempt to become speaker after he beat Mr Jordan in the first internal ballot on nominating a candidate for speaker earlier this week.

Mr Jordan is a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump and has a reputation in Congress as a rightwing hardliner and brawler. He may yet end up failing to get the votes he needs for a floor vote as the GOP divisions appear far from softening.

As the GOP has a very small majority, Mr Jordan can only lose four votes on the House floor, and a number of Republicans on the moderate end of the conference have already said they won’t back Mr Jordan even in a vote of the full chamber.

Early in the morning of 6 October, former president Donald Trump threw his support behind Rep Jim Jordan in the race to become speaker of the House. The endorsement was not entirely surprising given Mr Jordan, an Ohio congressman, occupied the same lane in the House of Representatives that Mr Trump has as a presidential candidate and president – as an expression of conservatives who were dissatisfied with Republican leadership and a candidate who channelled their rage.

Following the failure of Majority Leader Steve Scalise to get the backing he needed for vote on the floor of the House, the focus has now returned to Mr Jordan, who was the only challenger to Mr Scalise in the first internal GOP vote on who should be the next speaker. Mr Scalise won that vote 113 to Mr Jordan’s 99.

A product of the Tea Party wave and founder of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, Mr Jordan’s tenure in the House led to the ouster of former speaker John Boehner, which set the stage for Kevin McCarthy’s downfall earlier this month, despite his steadfast support for the speaker.

In addition, as a previous chair of the House Oversight Committee and now the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, he has defended Mr Trump vociferously. Fast-talking, pugnacious and prone to inflammatory rhetoric that veers into outright falsehoods, Mr Jordan often can be seen roaming the halls of the House not wearing a suit jacket.

The mess that is the Republican contest to choose a new House speaker just got worse, with no clear path in sight. Here’s what could happen next:

THE BACKGROUND The new chaos emerged after the initial GOP nominee for speaker, Rep Steve Scalise (R-LA), declared on Thursday that he had been unable to secure the support he needed to take the vote to the House floor. Mr Scalise’s decision came after he had failed to convince 217 of the 221 members of the House Republican Conference required to win the gavel to vote for him for speaker.

“If you look at where our conference is, there’s still work to be done,” he said. “Our conference still has to come together. And it’s not there.”

“There are still some people that have their own agendas,” he added. “And I was very clear we have to have everybody put their agendas on the side and focus on what this country needs this country is counting on us to come back together.”