The GOP’s not-so-secret Operation Circus was thwarted by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday. This week, Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy selected five of his party colleagues to serve on the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol. His choices—most notably Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)—signaled that the Republicans would continue to oppose and sabotage a thorough probe of the Trump-incited insurrectionist assault, Donald Trump’s actions (or inaction) that day, and the events that preceded this act of domestic terrorism.

And Pelosi said no. She rejected Jordan and another of McCarthy’s picks, Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.). Both voted against certifying the 2020 election results, meaning they have been part of Trump’s Big Lie machine. And they also voted against creating an independent commission to investigate the January 6 attack. Though some of McCarthy’s other choices cast the same votes, these two were clearly the chief obstructionists-in-waiting.

Jordan has been one of most adamant Trump cultists. He has demonstrated a willingness to say or do anything to derail any inquiry that may be bad news for his Dear Leader. This was apparent during the first Trump impeachment. Jordan, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, which conducted the impeachment hearings, was the king of denial, deflection, and distraction. The matter at hand was Trump’s effort to muscle the new Ukrainian president into launching bogus investigations to tar Joe Biden and to promote the conspiracy theory that Ukraine (not Russia) had intervened in the 2016 election—and had done so to assist Hillary Clinton. Yet Jordan and other Republican members of the intelligence committee—notably, California’s Devin Nunes, and Michael McCaul and John Ratcliffe, both from Texas—endeavored to steer attention away from Trump’s mob boss–like conduct. They attempted to turn the proceedings into a chaotic mess, as they harped on the Steele memos (which had nothing to do with Trump’s Ukraine caper) and other unrelated topics. Describing the impeachment investigation as a “hoax,” they insisted it was a Democratic media plot against Trump. At one point, Jordan bellowed, “The Democrats have never accepted the will of the American people!”

Their intent was to kick up dust, make the whole affair come across as another silly DC mud fight, and generate headlines about partisan bickering that would turn off the public and cast the impeachment as merely a D-versus-R tussle. Unlike the tango, it doesn’t take two to discredit a congressional hearing. One side acting crazy can do much to undermine a serious undertaking and cause it to be seen as a sh*tshow. (With an email newsletter, you have to be careful about using bad language that might trigger a spam filter.)

Jordan was a maestro of throwing crap at the wall to see if anything would stick. Protesting witnesses. Raising tangential matters. Hinting that the impeachment was a Deep State setup. And when damning facts emerged of Trump’s culpability, Jordan stuck to that simplest script of all: deny, deny, deny. For instance, he and the others kept insisting that the transcript of Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president didn’t show what it clearly showed, which is that Trump pressured him. Remember Monty Python’s dead parrot? It was as nutty as that.

All of this led to the unpleasant and bizarre encounter I had with Jordan as I was covering these hearings. The major issue was whether there had been an arguably illegal quid pro quo: whether the Ukrainian president would be granted a White House visit and receive military aide only if he announced the investigations Trump desired. Jordan repeatedly yelled there was “no linkage.”

Then came the testimony of Gordon Sondland, the Republican hotelier who had earned himself a US ambassadorship to the European Union by donating $1 million to Trump’s inauguration committee. His testimony showed that Trump had set up a corrupt pay-to-play foreign policy operation. Here’s how I reported this dramatic moment:

“Was there a quid pro quo?” Sondland said. “As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes.” Sondland went on to say that as the process continued, he came to conclude that the nearly $400 million in security assistance funds Trump was withholding from Ukraine was also part of this deal. Boom. Sondland confirmed the basics of the Democrats’ case for impeachment.

After the hearing, I was still in the committee room, and Jordan was walking by me. He looked angry—but he often looks angry. I stepped toward him and asked, “Do you still think there was no quid pro quo?” He slowed down for a moment, and he shouted directly into my face: “No quid pro quo!” This tantrum-like response was jarring. It was not how a responsible adult behaves, let alone an elected leader of the land. Jordan stormed out of the room. The moment was hardly revelatory, but it illustrated how he would say anything—including lies—to defend Trump. He was a Baghdad Bob–like propagandist with no regard for reality. After the hearings, Jordan and other committee members would release a report that unshockingly proclaimed Trump innocent of any wrongdoing. It was a masterpiece of brazen disinformation.

By placing Jordan, a conspiracy theorist, on the January 6 committee, McCarthy was showing his cards. It was like proposing an arsonist be hired as a firefighter. The same is true regarding Banks, a third-term House member widely regarded as a rising star in the GOP ranks. After being anointed by McCarthy, Banks issued a statement that laid out the GOP game plan:

If Democrats were serious about investigating political violence, this committee would be studying not only the January 6 riot at the Capitol, but also the hundreds of violent political riots last summer when many more innocent Americans and law-enforcement officers were attacked…Make no mistake, Nancy Pelosi created this committee solely to malign conservatives and to justify the Left’s authoritarian agenda.

This was upside-down loony. Trump’s brownshirts, at his urging, attacked Congress to try to overturn an election, yet probing this attempt to overthrow democracy is an “authoritarian” action. George Orwell would be proud. Banks was prepping to go all in on BLM and antifa and accuse the Democrats of being the enemies of democracy. Anything to turn the inquiry into a three-ring big top.

Pelosi drew a boatload of ire from the GOP after she put her foot down. Not surprisingly, McCarthy exploited the moment to pull out of the investigation. In a statement, he huffed: “Unless Speaker Pelosi reverses course and seats all five Republican nominees, Republicans will not be party to their sham process and will instead pursue our own investigation of the facts.” Their own investigation? The Republicans have opposed investigating the January 6 raid. They killed an independent commission that would have given them equal representation. On the Capitol steps Wednesday afternoon, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) pointed out that McCarthy “has attempted to prevent the American people from understanding what happened”

on that horrific day. And for good reason, in a way. As I previously noted, any worthwhile inquiry would involve getting testimony from a long list of prominent Republicans—including, yes, McCarthy.

Following Pelosi’s decision and McCarthy’s threat to boycott the committee, the conventional wisdom crew of Washington began pontificating that Pelosi had played into McCarthy’s hands and provided him an easy line of attack: This is indeed a partisan plot to screw Trump and the Republicans. But Banks was already making such accusations. And Jordan’s performance at those impeachment hearings shows that GOPers did not need Pelosi to politicize the inquiry.

Pelosi has apparently learned a lesson: Congress cannot mount a responsible investigation by including bad-faith actors bent on undermining the inquiry. Jordan and Banks are not just expressing policy differences. They are covering for insurrectionists and aiding and abetting authoritarianism. The speaker is sending a message: in a democracy, that is not acceptable. And now Jordan, barred from the committee, will have to do all his yelling in the hallway.

What To Read, Watch, and Listen To

Steve Earle. On Tuesday night at the Birchmere music hall in Alexandria, Virginia, “Happy Days Are Here Again” came on the PA as Steve Earle and the Dukes took the stage. The damn-glad-to-be-there audience got the joke. Attending a show these days is a return to almost-normalcy (even if this will only be a temporary respite, thanks to those who refuse to be vaccinated and the conservative voices fueling resistance to vaccination, but that’s another subject). Earle, the Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter, roots rocker, and musical polyglot, appropriately opened with “Feel Alright.” And the crowd did. But this show was not all happy times. Last August, his son Justin Townes Earle died of an accidental overdose. He was 38-years-old, and an accomplished musician and songwriter, having produced eight albums and an EP. Immediately, his father began working on an album featuring Justin’s songs. Released in early January, J.T. is a vivid and tragic tribute to his son’s talents.

At the Birchmere, after running through some of the best numbers in his extensive catalogue, Earle turned to a trio of tunes from an album he released last year called Ghosts of West Virginia. The theme of the album is the 2010 explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia—owned by coal giant Massey Energy—that killed 29 workers. The songs were written for a play about the disaster called Coal Country that was created by the playwriting team of Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen. It opened at the Public Theater in New York City in early March 2020 to acclaim. The pandemic shut it down two weeks later.

After those songs, Earle told the audience that last year he and his band had recorded an album “I couldn’t have imagined making in a thousand years.” He performed three tracks from J.T. The numbers were haunting and imbued with a loss that encompassed the whole past damn year and more. Earle then segued into one of his most memorable songs, “Goodbye,” a melancholic number off his 1995 Train a Comin’ comeback album, which he recorded after overcoming an addiction that derailed his musical career, landed him in jail, and nearly killed him. With the haunting refrain, “I can’t remember if we said goodbye,” the song may not have been written for Justin, but it was being played for him. Folks around me teared up. Earle did not play “Last Words,” a song he wrote for Justin shortly after his death, which is the last track on J.T.

Once he finished “Goodbye,” Earle took a long, deep breath, and he and his kick-ass band then amped up with several hard-rocking songs, including Jimi Hendrix’s “Hey Joe.” But the heart of the show was Earle’s grief, and for the rest of us it was a poignant reminder that as we enjoy the journey toward a post-pandemic reality (though this transition may be in doubt), there’s so much pain from the past year and a half. And it isn’t going away.

Earle will be touring through the summer. Here’s his version of Justin’s “Harlem River Blues”:

Here’s Justin doing “Harlem River Blues”:

Got any recommendations of what I should be reading, watching, or listening to? Send them to thisland@motherjones.com.

Read Previous Issues of This Land

July 20, 2021: The time a Republican president did the right thing to stop an epidemic; Trump’s big narcissism fail; Nelson Algren and Norman Podhoretz; a new psychedelic Beatles-esque tune; and more.

July 17, 2021: Why the Guardian’s Trump-Russia bombshell—dud or not—doesn’t fully matter; Dumbass Comment of the Week; why Bosch works in spite of Bosch; MoxieCam™; and more.

July 15, 2021: Does President Joe Biden really stand with the Cuban people?; the time I really pissed off the Cuban regime; J. Edgar Hoover vs. MLK; one of the best movie reviews of all time; and more.

July 13, 2021: A coming referendum on Donald Trump; a suggestion for Hunter Biden; a new book on how the super-rich screw us all; and more.

July 10, 2021: Why the Republicans are right to be terrified of the new House committee investigating the 1/6 attack; Dumbass Comment of the Week; Joni Mitchell’s Blue 50; and more.

July 7, 2021: How The Summer of Soul counters the GOP’s season of hate; a debate on the recent UFO report; Garry Trudeau, American Dostoyevsky; MoxieCam™; and more.

July 3, 2021: Donald Rumsfeld, Christopher Hitchens, the Iraq War, and me; the perils of taking a home DNA test; Dumbass Comment of the Week; a Springsteen story; and more.

July 1, 2021: Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and perjury; Adam Serwer’s new book; Cézanne’s crime scene; and more.

June 29, 2021: How the new UFO report is bad news for UFO believers; my own UFO tale; HBO Max’s Hacks; an anti-racist anthem; and more.

June 26, 2021: Is Josh Hawley dumb or evil? (The answer is not both); Dumbassery that encourages mass “executions” in the United States; renowned guitarist and songwriter Richard Thompson’s new tour and new book (and his claim regarding the best strings arrangement ever on a popular song); MoxieCam™ (before and after photos!), and more.

June 24, 2021: How an alleged 1/6 conspirator who called for executing Trump’s foes hooked up with a prominent Republican Party official; new Los Lobos; and more.

June 22, 2021: Why the GOP is pushing “political apartheid”; Ted Cruz wins Dumbass Comment of the Week; recommendations for an Apple TV+ series and a book on the curious origins of the universe; the first Clash tour of the United States (and being trapped in a van driven by a punk on acid); MoxieCam™; and more.

Got suggestions, comments, complaints, tips related to any of the above, or anything else? Email me at thisland@motherjones.com.