(CNN)If Republicans win the House majority next November -- and they are currently favored to do so -- then Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan will almost certainly rise to one of the most prominent positions in the chamber: Chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
Which makes his role in fomenting a potential coup on January 6 more than a little troubling.
We now know that Jordan forwarded to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows a message (sent from a former Department of Defense inspector general) that laid out the supposed Constitutional backing for then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election the following day.
"On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as President of the Senate, should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all," read the text that Jordan has confirmed he forwarded to Meadows.
That should worry us all -- and amounts to an escalation in Jordan's conduct in and around the election.
Read More
THE POINT -- NOW ON YOUTUBE!
In each episode of his weekly YouTube show, Chris Cillizza will delve a little deeper into the surreal world of politics. Click to subscribe!
It's no secret that Jordan has helped push former President Donald Trump's false narrative that the 2020 election was somehow stolen.
"I don't know how you can ever convince me that President Trump didn't actually win this thing based on all the things you see," Jordan said in an interview on Fox News in December 2020.
Jordan was also one of 139 House Republicans to vote to sustain the objections to the Electoral College votes in either Pennsylvania or Arizona on January 6.
Weirdly, less than a week later he insisted that "I've never said that this election was stolen."
Don't forget that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected Jordan and another Republican as members of the select committee investigating the January 6 riot.
Of course, what we know from this text to Meadows is that Jordan was actively presenting ways to circumvent the Electoral College process on the eve of Pence formally recognizing that Biden had indeed won.
Which is a very different thing from just throwing out some rhetoric on cable TV suggesting -- without any evidence -- that Trump had in fact won. It's taking concrete steps to obstruct the democratic process by which we transfer power in this country.
And that guy is -- again if Republicans win the majority -- going to be in charge of the Judiciary committee in the House in 2023. The committee that, if past is prologue, will lead investigations into the Biden administration and other parts of the federal government.
The worst part about all of this? The revelation that Jordan was a coup plotter -- or at the very least coup-adjacent -- won't hurt his chances of taking over Judiciary in a Republican-controlled House.
This is a party totally in thrall to Trump and his false claims about the 2020 election. That Jordan has been revealed to be one of people actively working to ensure that the January 6 Electoral College count didn't proceed will likely only bolster his credentials among the Trump crowd.