Donald Trump’s congressional allies have taken the fight to Manhattan, where they will attack District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, as weak on crime — all part of the Republican strategy to undermine the historic prosecution of the former president.
Led by Chairman Jim Jordan, the powerful House Judiciary Committee will hold a field hearing in Manhattan on Monday that will include victims of violent crime, as Republicans argue that Bragg has dropped the ball on keeping the public safe in order to focus on prosecuting Trump. Bragg’s office has defended the Trump probe and points to new data showing that crime has significantly fallen in Manhattan.
The high-profile hearing represents yet another escalation in the ongoing battle between Bragg and Trump and his top allies on Capitol Hill.
Bragg announced this month that a Manhattan grand jury had indicted Trump in a hush money scheme to silence adult film star Stormy Daniels during his successful 2016 presidential campaign. On April 4, Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying New York business records.
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Trump and other Republicans have blasted the Manhattan investigation and indictment as a politically motivated witch hunt designed to damage the 2024 GOP presidential front-runner.
Jordan, R-Ohio, and other House GOP committee chairs have launched their own investigations into Bragg’s probe of Trump and have called on the DA to testify before Congress, a request Bragg rejected. Jordan has also subpoenaed former New York County Special Assistant District Attorney Mark Pomerantz, who had led the DA’s office probe into Trump’s finances before he resigned last year.
Bragg, who has received multiple death threats, responded last week by suing Jordan to have the courts block the subpoenas, calling the congressional inquiry an “unconstitutional attempt to undermine an ongoing New York felony criminal prosecution and investigation” into Trump.
Now Jordan and Republicans will hold a congressional hearing focused on Bragg right in his backyard, at the Javits Federal Building. House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican and a key Trump ally, is not a Judiciary member and does not represent the New York City area, but she said she would be on hand.
“With New Yorkers continuing to feel unsafe and leaving the city and state in record numbers,” said Stefanik, “I look forward to holding Democrats accountable for their failure to prosecute crimes and instead engage in illegal political witch hunts against their political opponents.”
Among those who will testify are Jose Alba, a former Harlem bodega clerk whom Bragg’s office charged with second-degree murder and sent to Riker’s Island jail after he fatally stabbed a man who jumped behind the counter and attacked Alba last July. Alba had claimed self-defense. And after an outcry from New York Mayor Eric Adams and others, Bragg dropped the murder charge, according to NBC New York.
Others testifying include Madeline Brame, chair of the Victims Rights Reform Council, which was formed in honor of her son, who was murdered; and Jennifer Harrison, founder of Victims Rights NY whose boyfriend was fatally stabbed outside a New Jersey club in 2005. Harrison’s group’s website includes a petition urging Gov. Kathy Hochul to exercise her power to “Fire Alvin Bragg.”
“The dangerous, pro-crime agendas of far-left prosecutors like Alvin Bragg are destroying lives and communities across this country,” said Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana, a member of GOP leadership and of the Judiciary Committee who will attend Monday’s hearing.
Bragg’s office has pushed back, calling New York City “the safest big city in America” and highlighting New York Police Department data that showed violent crime had dropped in the first quarter of 2023 compared with a year ago in Manhattan.
Murders are down 14%, shootings dropped 17% and burglaries fell 21% in the borough, per the New York Police Department.
“In D.A. Bragg’s first year in office, New York City had one of the lowest murder rates of major cities in the United States (5.2) nearly three times lower than Columbus, Ohio (15.4),” Bragg’s office said.
“If Chairman Jordan truly cared about public safety, he could take a short drive to Columbus, Dayton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Akron, or Toledo in his home state, instead of using taxpayer dollars to travel hundreds of miles out of his way.”
The hearing could become a bit of a political circus. Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen, a key witness in the hush-money investigation, will speak to reporters at the Javits Federal Building before the hearing begins.
Last week, Trump sued Cohen for $500 million, citing “breaches of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment, conversion, and breaches of contract.”
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
