Weaponization to the very end? Jim Jordan probing last-minute Biden DOJ blitzkreig

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan is aggressively investigating a series of lame-duck actions the Biden Justice Department has been taking during its last few weeks in power, saying a recent flurry of activity against businesses and red states smacks of a new wave of politically weaponized government action.

In a wide-ranging interview with Just the News on Friday, Jordan cited DOJ efforts to investigate Elon Musk and his companies after his overt support for Donald Trump’s campaign, threatening letters sent to states seeking to remove noncitizens from voters rolls and several hastily launched antitrust inquiries as examples of potentially abusive DOJ behavior.

“This pattern of turning these agencies on the very people they're supposed to serve -- we the people, the taxpayers -- has been a concern from the get-go,” he told the Just the News, No Noise television show. “We're concerned now with what they may be doing with the antitrust issue, going after companies as they're heading out the door.

“Of course, right prior to the elections, we saw the Civil Rights Division in the Justice Department going after Virginia for simply keeping noncitizens from voting in our elections,” he added. “Imagine that we got the same thing in Ohio, our Secretary of State was sent a letter three weeks before Election Day saying they were concerned about the good work he was doing. So we're always concerned about this. We're going to keep working.”

Jordan sent a letter Friday to Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter, who oversees the DOJ’s antitrust division, demanding answers about a recent spate of activity since Trump was declared the winner of the Nov. 5 election.

“According to information available to the Committee, the Antitrust Division aggressively moved to escalate its regulation of American businesses shortly following the election of President Trump,” Jordan wrote Kanter. “Specifically, we have received allegations that the Division sent demand letters to numerous businesses indicating an intention to start enforcement actions in the final days of the Biden-Harris Administration.

“With the American people clearly rejecting the failed policies of the Biden-Harris Administration, the Division's actions are inappropriate and  inconsistent with the will of the American people,” he said.

You can read the full letter here.

The letter demands that the DOJ “preserve all existing and future records and materials responsive to any request for documents and information related to the Committee's oversight of the DOJ Antitrust Division.”

Jordan also made clear he plans to continue to investigate the behavior of Special Prosecutor Jack Smith in his pursuit of criminal charges against Trump, even if Smith drops the cases and resigns as widely expected.

“That's why we put them on notice. Preserve everything and understand the Congress. The history is that Congress oversees the special counsel,” he said.

The chairman said he was particularly interested in exploring whether one of Smith’s deputies, Jay Bratt, had contact with the Biden White House as the criminal cases against Trump were being conceived.

“We have concerns about Mr. Bratt. What were his conversations with people when it looks like he was at the White House? We want to know if, in fact, that happened, who he who he talked to, what he talked about, any correspondence relevant to that,” Jordan explained.

“We think all that is worthy of us getting information on and making sure, again, this kind of stuff doesn't, not supposed to happen, shouldn't happen in the future,” the Ohio Republican explained.

Jordan also signaled he will use his perch atop the committee next year to make a new push for long-awaited reforms of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) spying.

Jordan nearly succeeded in the last year in getting a requirement that U.S. intelligence and the FBI get a court-ordered warrant to spy on Americans' phone calls overseas. The measure failed in a tie vote, and Jordan said he plans to reintroduce the warrant requirement when the new Congress convenes in January.

Jordan expressed particular excitement for Trump's pick of former Democratic congresswoman and presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard to be the next Director of National Intelligence, saying he was hopeful it could tip FISA reform over the top.

"Having Tulsi at ODNI. I mean, she's a champion of the First Amendment," Jordan told the Just the News, No Noise television show.

"This is what I love so much about President Trump's election, he is putting people in these Cabinet agencies, nominating people who have the attitude the American people elected, that American people voted for, which is we're going to go serve the people, protect their liberties, make government actually more efficient smaller, working for the country and protecting their rights," he added. "That I think is great, and Tulsi believes in the First Amendment, free speech and freedom."