GOP Rep. Steve Stivers explains why Jim Jordan is still in Congress

Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call Group | Getty Images

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, talks with reporters after a meeting of the House Republican Conference in the Capitol on June 26, 2018. 

Stivers: Let’s let the investigation happen and the facts come out and then we’ll deal with what the facts are, as opposed to rumors. I try not to deal in hypotheticals.

Harwood: We’ve also had, in the Trump Cabinet and some of your colleagues in the House, some pretty big scandal issues. We’ve had a couple Cabinet members leave, you saw your colleague Chris Collins charged with insider trading. How significant do you think the issue of the swamp, corruption, will be in this campaign, especially given the way President Trump talked about it in his 2016 campaign?

Stivers: I don’t think either party has some kind of monopoly on virtue or sin. Chaka Fattah was a Democrat, he’s in jail. Corinne Brown, a Democrat, she’s in jail. Ruben Kihuen, a Democrat member from Nevada, accused of sexually harassing folks and still a member of Congress.

The one thing I will say is where we’ve had issues inside our Republican conference, and there have been serious allegations, we’ve dealt with them very quickly and the people have moved on and moved aside.

Harwood: That hasn’t happened with Jordan.

Stivers: It’s about facts, and there have been facts in most of these others.

Harwood: Right, but you said “serious allegations.”

Stivers: That’s fair, I should have said “facts,” because in a lot of these, there are facts.