Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, delivers remarks during a business meeting prior to a hearing on U.S. southern border security on Capitol Hill in Washington on Feb. 1, 2023. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said a subpoena is on the table if it will compel Manhattan District Attorney (DA) Alvin Bragg to testify about his recent decision to prosecute former President Donald Trump.
Last month, after Trump revealed he is facing prosecution by Bragg’s office, Jordan joined Reps. James Comer (R-Ky.) and Bryan Steil (R-Wisc.) on a letter questioning Bragg’s case. The letter asked Bragg to turn over any communications his office has with the New York County District Attorney’s Office or the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the DOJ’s component entities, or other federal law enforcement agencies relating to his case against Trump, and Bragg’s testimony regarding the prosecution.
On March 30, Bragg’s office confirmed it was going forward with a case against Trump. Leslie Dubeck, the general counsel for the Manhattan DA’s office, sent a response letter to Jordan and the other Republican lawmakers the following day, saying compliance with their requests for documents and testimony “would interfere with law enforcement” and a “congressional review of a pending criminal investigation usurps executive powers.”
In an interview on April 2 with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, Jordan indicated that he is still seeking Bragg’s testimony despite the rebuttal by the DA’s office. Bartiromo asked whether Republicans would consider subpoenaing Bragg if he refused to testify, to which Jordan replied, “Everything’s on the table.”
“We’re going to talk with the other chairman and look at the response. We just got his letter back. We’re reviewing that,” said Jordan, who serves as the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
NTD News reached out to the Manhattan DA’s office for comment but didn’t receive a response by press time.
The indictment against the former president remains sealed. Still, it comes after Bragg’s office had been investigating Trump for his alleged involvement in a $130,000 payment in 2016 to adult entertainment actress Stormy Daniels by his lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen. The payment was allegedly made to stop Daniels from going public with her claim of an affair with Trump before the 2016 election. Trump denies the alleged affair.
Bragg’s office may argue the payment should have been classified as a campaign expense but was wrongly classified as a business expense by the Trump Organization—in violation of Section 175 of New York law—which ranks the falsification of business records as a Class E felony. The DOJ had already declined to prosecute the 2016 payment to Daniels as an election law violation.
Weaponization of Government Allegations
As chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Jordan also leads the newly formed Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government.
Jordan connected Bragg’s case against Trump to the broader work of his committee to investigate allegations of government officials using their offices to target their political opponents.
In his interview with Bartiromo, Jordan listed the Manhattan DA’s prosecution of Trump alongside records indicating FBI efforts to pay the author and a source for an anti-Trump dossier, the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC’s) sending harassing letters to Twitter after Elon Musk bought the platform, and IRS agents’ visiting the home of journalist Matt Taibbi as he testified about government efforts to suppress and censor content on Twitter.
“This is about going after anyone who opposes the left’s agenda, the establishment’s agenda. And that’s maybe the most scary thing of all,” Jordan said.
Republicans Say Defunding ‘Politicized’ DAs
Jordan and other Republicans have raised the possibility of pulling federal funds away from local district attorneys who they say use their prosecutorial powers to go after political foes.
In their March letter, Jordan, Comer, and Steil asked Bragg’s office to provide details about the federal funding it receives.
“Often, the federal government is funding and providing resources to prosecutors across the United States. The purpose of that is to make our cities safer,” Steil said in an interview with Just The News on March 24. “If we find out through this investigation that instead those are being used to weaponize DAs across the country with a purpose of grinding a political axe rather than making our communities safer, we’re going to have to go back into the funding model.”
Trump has also linked Bragg to campaign donations by Democrat megadonor George Soros.
Soros has been linked to millions of dollars in local DA races. Conservative commentators have argued that Soros’s funding in DA races is going toward candidates who prefer to dismiss or lower punishments for certain criminal cases, lowering disincentives against criminal behavior, and leading to a rise in crimes.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, was copied on the Republican letter to Bragg’s office and has condemned Republicans’ plans to question Bragg and his employees as an intimidation tactic.
“No matter what crimes Donald Trump may have committed, Republicans tie themselves in knots protecting him. Even at the expense of the American people, law enforcement, and our legal system. Jim Jordan and Kevin McCarthy: hands off NYC & quit meddling in ongoing investigations,” Nadler wrote in a March 20 tweet.
“Using a congressional committee to bully a state DA sounds like … the weaponization of the federal government,” he wrote in another tweet.
In his March 31 response letter, Dubeck said that “federal funding is an insufficient basis” to justify Republican requests for documents and testimony from Bragg.
“Nonetheless, to assist Congress in understanding the ways in which the DA’s Office has used federal funds, we are preparing and will submit a letter describing its use of federal funds,” Dubeck wrote.
From NTD News