Facing extremely expansive demands from House Republicans for documentary — and potentially revealing evidentiary — materials in the midst of his investigation into Donald Trump and associates of the ex-president, Alvin Bragg, the district attorney in Manhattan, isn’t backing down.
Bragg was sent a letter from three Republicans leading prominent panels in the House, a list including Reps. Jim Jordan (Ohio), James Comer (Ky.), and Bryan Steil (Wisc.), who lead the House Judiciary, Oversight, and Administration committees, respectively. The Republicans demanded caches of materials like all communications or documents associated with such work involving former team members Carey Dunne or Mark Pomerantz and relating to Trump — a category of materials that could represent a staggeringly huge batch of data showing the inner workings of the grand jury investigation underway in Manhattan and overseen most recently by Bragg. They also wanted, among other things, testimony from Bragg and documentation on the district attorney’s office’s use of federal funds, lobbing conjectural allegations about the supposedly political basis of what Bragg is doing.
In a civil case from New York state Attorney General Letitia James over allegations of financial misconduct at the Trump family business, claims of political animus on the investigators’ part have been repeatedly thrown out in court. As for Bragg, a spokesperson replied to the GOP chairmen: “We will not be intimidated by attempts to undermine the justice process, nor will we let baseless accusations deter us from fairly applying the law. While this office follows the facts, not everyone does. In every prosecution, we follow the law without fear or favor to uncover the truth. Our skilled, honest and dedicated lawyers remain hard at work. New York remains one of the safest big cities in the U.S. with a far lower murder rate than the most populous cities where the Committee Chairmen hail from – Ohio, Wisconsin, and Kentucky.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who currently serves as the top Democrat on the oversight panel, has made similar points about the actually high rates of crime in areas that lean Republican, which contrasts with the GOP obsession with trying to tie Democratic leadership in places like New York and Washington, D.C., to crime. Specifically in New York, investigating authorities have repeatedly faced accusations, particularly from Trump, of basically just ignoring violent crime, which is ridiculous. “AMERICAN PATRIOTS ARE BEING ARRESTED & HELD IN CAPTIVITY LIKE ANIMALS, WHILE CRIMINALS & LEFTIST THUGS ARE ALLOWED TO ROAM THE STREETS, KILLING & BURNING WITH NO RETRIBUTION,” Trump recently claimed on Truth Social, which simply doesn’t in any way meaningfully reflect reality in this country. It’s just a flat-out lie.
A spokesperson for @ManhattanDA shares the following response: “We will not be intimidated by attempts to undermine the justice process, nor will we let baseless accusations deter us from fairly applying the law. While this office follows the facts, not everyone does…” 1/3
— Arden Farhi (@ArdenFarhi) March 21, 2023
“…New York remains one of the safest big cities in the U.S. with a far lower murder rate than the most populous cities where the Committee Chairmen hail from – Ohio, Wisconsin, and Kentucky.” 3/3
— Arden Farhi (@ArdenFarhi) March 21, 2023
