'CONSTITUTIONAL CONSERVATIVES' LOSE INTEREST IN HOLDING TRUMP ACCOUNTABLE.

• Author: Welch, Matt
• Position: POLITICS

WHEN REP. JIM Jordan (R-Ohio), Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C), Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), and six other colleagues co-founded the House Freedom Caucus in January 2015, there was ample reason for libertarians to cheer. Unlike the soft-spined conservatism of the larger Republican Study Committee, the Freedom Caucus promised to be much more hardcore about spending, war, constitutionalism, and oversight of the executive branch. "We support open, accountable and limited government, the Constitution, and the rule of law," a founding statement from Jordan's office read.

As chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform's Subcommittee on Health Care, Benefits, and Administrative Rules, Jordan frequently took a moralistic approach to calling out the Obama administration's lies. "From the beginning, what President Obama told Americans about his health care law proved false," he charged, accurately, in February 2015.

When the House passed (though the Senate did not take up) a resolution in 2014 requesting appointment of a special counsel to investigate the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of Tea Party groups, the author was no surprise: Jim Jordan. "We need this Special Counsel to help us get to the truth because the so-called investigation by the Justice Department has been a joke," he said at the time.

So how did Jordan react to the May 2017 appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel to oversee the FBI's ongoing investigation into the Russia-related activities of President Donald Trump?

"Well, I'm--you know, look, I guess I'll keep an open mind," were the congressman's first recorded public words. That mind has been closing ever since.

Five weeks later, Jordan and Meadows were already co-authoring op-eds saying it was "time to investigate the investigators" because Mueller's team leaned too Democratic. One month after that, Jordan signed onto an official request for a second special counsel, this one focusing on potential crimes by Hillary Clinton. The congressman is a permanent fixture on cable news, hyping the latest soon-to-be-forgotten Mueller-probe controversy and issuing grave condemnations against any official seemingly caught in a lie.

Except Donald Trump.

In an April CNN interview, Anderson Cooper asked Jordan whether he thinks Trump "lies a lot." Jordan answered, "I do not." Cooper then asked whether he had ever heard the president lie. "He's always been square with me," the congressman said. After a few more...