Congressman and noted human sweat stain Jim Jordan (R-OH) gave a compelling performance during the November 15 impeachment hearing while questioning former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. It wasn’t compelling in the sense that his questioning poked holes in the testimony of a 30-year-career diplomate who was allegedly ousted from her post because she wouldn’t cosign President Donald Trump‘s alleged shakedown of the president of Ukraine. It was more compelling because his performance was reminiscent of a drunk Foghorn Leghorn doing slam poetry.
“The very month you went to Ukraine as our ambassador, the Ukrainian Ambassador here in the United States, Ambassador Chaly wrote an op-ed in The Hill that said this: ‘Trump’s comments send the wrong message.’ So the very month you’re over there as our ambassador to the Ukraine, the ambassador from Ukraine writes that op-ed. And it wasn’t just that attack … on the president,” Jordan began. “We had former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, who criticized candidate Trump. We had Mr. Avakov. I believe earlier you said that Mr. Avakov was the first individual who alerted you to the efforts of Mr. Giuliani. Mr. Avakov back during the same time period in the months just prior to the 2016 elections called then-candidate Trump all kinds of names.”
“And of course we has Mr. Yuvchenko, a member of parliament, who was a source for Fusion GPS and that now somewhat famous dossier that flowed from Fusion’s work,” he continued to ramble. “You had several high ranking officials in the government who … criticized president then-candidate Trump all in the late summer and fall of 2016.”
But his questioning didn’t end there. Jordan went on for quite a while longer before he finally wrapped up.
Yovanovitch kept a remarkably straight face as she tried to navigate the Trump ally’s Shakespearean soliloquy cobbled together from myriad conspiracy theories. Then she pauses for a beat and a half, clearly searching for the point of that glorified filibuster before asking, “I’m sorry, was there a question there?”
She earned what was likely an unintentional laugh break at Jordan’s expense in the process.
Jim Jordan: [Rambles incomprehensibly]
Amb. Yovanovitch: I'm sorry, was there a question there? pic.twitter.com/FlYW0tNY7l
— Lis Power (@LisPower1) November 15, 2019
Her remark was definitely a highlight, but let’s not overlook Jordan smugly responding “yes” and holding that grin in place for a seemingly interminable pause before Yovanovitch is forced to ask him to repeat it.
This is the kind of competence we can come to expect from the dude who stayed in frame while fellow Trump sycophant Matt Gaetz told reporters that House Intel Committee Chairman Adam Schiff is “a malicious Captain Kangaroo.”
