Mehek Cooke and Jim Jordan Unpack What Washington Was Hiding

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]This is bigger than one investigation.

[00:00:02]For years, Americans were told that people labeling citizens extremists were protecting democracy. But now, the question is whether some of those institutions were protecting democracy or protecting power. From the SPLC to the DOJ to Arctic Frost, we're seeing serious questions about who gets targeted, who gets prosecuted, and who actually is held accountable. Today, I sit down with Chairman Jim Jordan to ask questions that voters care about heading into the midterms. Did Republicans keep their promise or did Washington turn accountability into just another hearing? Chairman Jordan, it's so good to see you today and to be able to speak to you.

[00:00:42]>> I really want to start with the bigger picture that Americans are really focused on. I think for years we were told over and over again to trust institutions and making sure that we actually trusted when people said somebody's an extremist or people were flagging political speech and >> continue to have these claims that everybody out there was protecting democracy. But now we're actually seeing a serious question about the SPLC and the DOJ. And I want to ask you, this is the most important question. Who defines hate in America?

[00:01:19]>> Well, the the SPLC put themselves out there as the uh as the standard. Like they were they were the one who they were the source on evaluating who uh who was a hate group, who wasn't. Um and uh they uh you know, they would they would label just conservative pro-f family organizations like like Focus on the Family or excuse me, like Family Research Council, um Moms for Liberty, they would label them as a hate group.

[00:01:43]Meanwhile, James Revenge, which firebombed churches and crisis pregnancy centers in the aftermath of the DOS decision, they never made the hate list.

[00:01:52]So, yeah, they they they were doing things for political reasons and trying to be the end all beall source on it.

[00:02:00]And then the scariest part was probably that the Biden administration worked with them, helped make them the standard, had quarterly meetings with them, the Justice Department did under Joe Biden's uh in Joe Biden's administration, and even had the SPLC come in and helped train prosecutors. So that's uh they tried to be the one who defined it. We all know that they weren't defining it uh appropriately, of course, but yeah, they were they were trying to define it themselves. Well, it's shocking to see through your hearing, you at one point stated that the SPLC had about $55 million, but after the Unite to write rally, it tripled threefold. How do you explain that? And why didn't the Biden DOJ, who was supposedly looking into the SPLC, actually flag this? How how can a government institution actually turn to a nonprofit that's manufacturing hate?

[00:02:53]Well, I'll do the second second part of that first. Uh, yeah, they were investigating when they started seeing this these field sources, these these, you know, confidential sources that, right, the SPLC was actually paying. So, the Biden administration was investig but they stopped their investigation.

[00:03:09]And I think the obvious reason is because of the politics like, oh, the SPLC is labeling Republican groups, conservative groups as hate groups. We like the politics of all that. This fits our narrative that the Trump administration is just terrible. you know, all the stuff that they were saying. And you go back to when it kind of really started, which was 2017 at that crazy rally in Charlottesville.

[00:03:31]Turns out the SPLC was paying a guy to help promote that, who actually attended that rally, who helped coordinate transportation to that rally. And of course, we know what happened at that rally. He had a bunch of crazy people and one really bad evil person drove a car into a crowd of people and killed a young lady. So, that's what took place.

[00:03:51]after that event where they could say, "Oh, you know, look, the Southern Property Law Center is fighting this stuff even though they were helping manufacture it, >> right?

[00:03:59]>> They they almost tripled their annual revenue going from 50ome million as you as you pointed out to I think $133 million in in the in the next year." So, they learned that um you know, it's one thing to fight hate, it's another thing to create it and then uh that's a little more profitable. And so that's uh that's that that was the model they followed.

[00:04:20]They've been running a scam. They were actually promoting the very hate they were telling their donors that they were fighting.

[00:04:27]>> Well, what can we expect? I know that a lot of investigations happened on Capitol Hill. But we're looking at you.

[00:04:34]You've actually put out a subpoena now for the CEO of SPLC. He's going to be testifying June 9th, Brian Far. What can we expect not only from his testimony, but then where is the accountability and and what can Americans expect?

[00:04:51]>> Well, the real accountability be the Justice Department and they're they've launched uh you know they've they've got an indictment. They're they've got their investigation full full tilt. All we can do is the oversight that we're required to do under the Constitution. We're the legislative branch. And then we can propose uh certain things that make sense from a legislation uh point of view, like passing certain bills or whatever we we may need based on our oversight, based on our investigation.

[00:05:13]But the Justice Department's the one that could hold people accountable for criminal wrongdoing. And that's exactly what's going on. They they've indicted uh the SPLC. Uh their investigation is proceeding. What we're doing is getting documents. We subpoena documents. Mr. fair. The CEO is scheduled to be in front of the committee on June the 9th and we'll have a lot of the same kind of questions that we raised yesterday in that hearing. We had one witness who I thought said it well. He said they were they were the arsonists, you know, they were portraying to the to the public and to the donors that they were the firefighters putting out the the the fire when they were also involved in creating the very fire as evidenced by the fact they paid $3 million to these field sources. Uh that's what they called them who were really bad people.

[00:05:56]we're fighting the racist, but we're actually paying the racist that we're telling you we're fighting. U was was what they were up to. And you can't you can't run a scam like that.

[00:06:04]>> You're right. And I think that a lot of these donors, actually, all of them should be getting their money back and we should be defunding these types of nonprofits. So, I'm interested to see what the Justice Department does and also following your work. I want to turn also to Arctic Frost. Look, this is one of those investigations that just continues to get more explosive. I saw that your committee had newly released documents where now we're seeing the Biden Harris DOJ was pursuing financial records of Congresswoman Lauren Boowbert. So, first we knew your phones were tapped. You were one of the dozens of individuals and to what end? I mean, it was years where they were weaponizing and trying to understand this political map. But I I really want to know, was Arctic Frost about a criminal case and did they build a criminal case? Is or was this all weaponization?

[00:06:57]>> Well, I think it was weaponization. Uh yeah, and you're right. And it was this blanket investigation that then that then got uh you know, absorbed into uh Jack Smith's special counsel investigation, all designed to go after President Trump. But as we're now learning over the last several months, it was not just President Trump. It was every Republican in this town it seemed like they were going after. You point out my my they got my phone records.

[00:07:23]They know who I called, who called me, when the call happened, how long the call lasted um for two and a half years.

[00:07:30]Uh and and you you know how this is, you can pattern an individual's life. You know, when you're calling your family, when you're calling your colleagues, what I mean, like that is not supposed to be how things operate uh in our great country. But they did that to me and several other members of Congress, including the speaker of the house 16 days after Kevin McCarthy becomes speaker. The Justice Department subpoenas his phone records and they know all that about the speaker. You talk about violating speech or debate clause of the Constitution. You know, they're they're knowing who the speaker is talking to before big votes, after big votes. That is that is ridiculous.

[00:08:04]But they did that to this the guy second in line to the president, the top Republican in the government at that time. So this is how egregious it is.

[00:08:13]And now we find out this week that there was a person at the Justice Department in the Biden administration who kept records and then emailed them to herself, which she wasn't supposed to do. It looks like what she emailed to herself was a copy of the uh report, the classified report from Jack Smith's investigation that the judge has now ordered, of course, several months ago that is not to be made public. So, that that's the latest thing that's happened with uh with the Justice Department and what was going on with this whole Artic Frost investigation. Well, that's damning because this DOJ employee, who is an attorney, who knows better, was emailing herself these records and calling them chocolate cake and bunt cake recipes. Right. We talk about confidential information. And what's even more damning is that the judge ordered these records not to be released. So now, Congressman, are you going to get to the bottom of who this DOJ employee shared these records with?

[00:09:10]Because there were massive leaks that impacted President Trump's election.

[00:09:14]Yeah, >> believe it or not, we won the 77 million Americans voted for President Trump, but those records still impacted Americans.

[00:09:21]There were many people that may have sat out or not voted for Donald Trump because of leaks like this. So, what can we expect?

[00:09:28]>> Yeah, we'll we'll see what happens with the prosecution. I don't know who she shared them with or if she shared them with that information with anyone. If she did, of course, that's a big problem. But the simple fact that she violated Department of Justice policy by taking a document that was information that was supposed to remain in the Justice Department and emailed it to her personal email which is outside the Justice Department that's a violation of Justice Department policy. And then of course if she shared that information when you now have a judge who said that is supposed to be remained classified, no one's supposed to see it. if she shared it with someone who doesn't have a clearance, wasn't supposed to see it, that's an even bigger problem. So, we'll see what what u what takes place there.

[00:10:10]But I think this is part of this whole, you know, in the in the in the Biden Justice Department, certainly back in the Obama Justice Department as well, you had people who were out to get the president. I mean, go back to what it started, Peter Struck and Lisa Page, >> right? I mean, think about that.

[00:10:23]Remember their text messages back and forth where there's that one text message where Lisa Paige says, "Are we going to be able to stop him? We'll stop Trump." Remember that one? Then there was the other text message where where struck talking about folks like you and I who support President Trump where Peter Struck said, "I'm in the Northern Virginia Walmart. I can smell the Trump supporters." So that was the disdain they had for half the population of this country and what they were trying to do to stop President Trump. So um yeah, we'll we'll we'll see how all this uh all this shakes out.

[00:10:52]>> Well, in addition to the DOJ, what can we expect legislatively? I mean, there do there need to be harsher criminal penalties when somebody is caught, whether it's sensitive information, classified information, or obstruction?

[00:11:05]>> I don't necessarily think I don't think we need to enhance any penalties. I just think that when people violate the law, they need to be prosecuted. And that's what Todd Blanch, uh, Cash Patel, and the Trump Justice Department are doing.

[00:11:17]Whether it's this individual who emailed classified information to her personal email address, whether it's Jim Comey, whether it's a guy we referred, John Brennan, who we think definitely lied to us as members of Congress when we had him in for a deposition. So, I think I think we'll leave that with uh with with Mr. Blanch and in the attorney general's office. Um, and I think Todd's doing an outstanding job.

[00:11:39]>> I do, too. And you nailed the last question for me beautifully as we look to the midterms. What voters want, as you have stressed over and over again, is accountability. So, as we're heading there, how do we measure Republican success? Because voters are sitting back today, what what does that success look like to you?

[00:11:58]>> Did we do what we said we were going to do? I mean, I think we have. President Trump ran on, we ran on. He said, "If you elect us, put President Trump in the White House, we'll secure the border."

[00:12:06]That has definitely happened. I mean, I still remember in in the State of the Union or the joint address to Congress a year ago, one this year was tremendous, but so was the one year ago. Uh I remember that line when he said, you know, people thought you need a new legislation to secure the border. Turns out all you needed was a new president.

[00:12:21]And very true. So we've secured the border. Uh largest tax cut in American history, just like we told the American people we were going to do. We said in that big beautiful bill that if you're an able-bodied adult, you're going to have to work now to get taxpayer money.

[00:12:33]Good for taxpayers, good for the economy, and good for that person. Uh we also did the first time ever school choice where we we build into the tax code a school choice component which gives moms and dads the the ability to pick where their son or daughter is going to get the best education. So all those things are positive. We go tell the voters that and then I think we also tell the voters you know look the choice is clear here. You can pick common sense or you can pick crazy. Every position the left now takes is crazy. From, you know, defunding the police, abolishing ICE to to uh sanctuary jurisdictions to men and women's sports to you name it.

[00:13:08]Every position they take is just leftwing craziness. So, I think it is important. Elections are choices and you have to frame it up in a real way and I think if we do that, uh, we can win.

[00:13:19]>> Well, thank you, Congressman. I'm looking forward to your work and seeing what happens in the midterms.

[00:13:24]>> Thank you so much. Take care. You too.