Jim Jordan rips Nadler for calling Lewandowski to testify instead of DOJ inspector general Horowitz

While testy exchanges between Chairman Jerrod Nadler and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski got most of the attention at Tuesday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing on impeachment, one Republican on the panel thought the proceedings should have taken an entirely different direction.

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said Tuesday that if House Democrats wanted to explore whether President Trump deserved impeachment, "a great place to start" would be with testimony from Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department inspector general tasked with investigating alleged abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

"A great place to start would be the inspector general's report that was issued just three weeks ago, the scathing report about Jim Comey," Jordan told Nadler during Tuesday’s hearing.

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In his report, Horowitz claimed that Comey, the former FBI director who was fired by President Trump, violated bureau policies by drafting, leaking and retaining his memos documenting private discussions with the president.

Republicans have maintained that Comey’s actions were part of an anti-Trump agenda within the FBI prior to the 2016 presidential election, with other alleged participants including former FBI acting director Andrew McCabe and former FBI staffers Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.

Jordan noted Tuesday that he had previously requested that Horowitz appear before the Judiciary Committee, only to be rebuffed by Nadler.

"When I asked the chairman when we might have an opportunity to question Mr. Horowitz, he said, 'I don't know. I haven't thought about that’," Jordan said.

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"Of course you haven't thought about that," Jordan added. "Too busy trying to impeach the president. Too busy slapping subpoenas on Corey Lewandowski."

Jordan had said Monday that potential prosecutions of former FBI personnel could come from U.S. Attorney John Durham, who was tapped by Attorney General Bill Barr in May to probe the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation.

But it will be "a while" before Durham's probe is concluded, Jordan said.

Fox News’ Catherine Herridge and Joshua Nelson contributed to this report.