U.S. Rep. Walter Jones is not endorsing anyone.

The Farmville Republican's chief of staff, Glen Downs, told Dome that he is officially on the sidelines of the presidential race until the nomination is decided.

"Senator McCain is awfully close to mathematically having it sewn up, and Congressman Jones is going to be an enthusiastic supporter of the Republican nominee," he said.  

As noted earlier, the Elizabeth City Daily Advance reported that Jones was endorsing U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, but Downs said that's not accurate.  

"He has very purposefully said kind things about Congressman Paul," he said. "They're personal friends. I think he's said 'If he was on the ballot, I would vote for him.' But he's not endorsed anybody."

Downs also said that McCain has already come a long way toward answering Jones' questions about border security. 

Anti-tax activist Grover Norquist campaigned across the 3rd Congressional district Monday, saying that Republican Congressman Walter Jones had broken his anti-tax pledge.

Norquist said Jones had violated an anti-tax pledge by voting last year for major farm and energy bills, Rob Christensen reports.

Norquist said he had known Jones for years, and had sent letters and talked to him by telephone urging him to avoid voting for a tax hike.

"There were flares up in the sky that were tax increases," Norquist said.

Glen Downs, Jones' chief of staff, said in both cases the farm bill and the energy bill were major pieces of legislation, and only a small portion involved increasing revenues — involving renegotiating oil company leases in the energy bill.

"There has never been a straight up tax increase that Walter has voted for," Downs said.

More after the jump.

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U.S. Rep. Walter Jones' chief of staff says he never voted to impeach the vice president. 

After Dome posted a link to a post by David Frum asserting that Jones voted to impeach Cheney, Glen Downs, Jones' chief of staff, called to say that Frum was wrong.

In November, there was an effort by Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich to impeach Cheney for "fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction" to justify the war in Iraq.

The vote involved some strange manuevers, in which the Republicans tried to force a vote to portray the Democrats as extreme, and the Democratic leadership tried to ship the measure to committee to kill it.

Jones voted against a motion to suspend the rules and consider the impeachment measure, Downs said. Jones then voted to send the measure to committee to kill it.

"He never voted to impeach Cheney," Downs said.

Previously: Jones gets help from GOP establishment.