Last week, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan thought it’d be a good idea to interfere in an ongoing local criminal investigation. Amid reports that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg might indict Donald Trump, the Ohio Republican joined two other GOP committee chairs to ask Bragg to testify before Congress.
The prosecutor, Jordan insisted, “owes” Republicans answers.
Has Bragg brought charges against the former president? No. Is there any evidence that the district attorney has engaged in any wrongdoing? No. Does the U.S. House have jurisdiction over a local prosecutor’s office? Probably not. But the far-right Judiciary Committee chairman pounced anyway.
Rep. Jamie Raskin was not pleased. “The Republicans’ letter to the Manhattan District Attorney represents an astonishing and unprecedented abuse of power as they attempt to use Congressional resources to interfere in an ongoing criminal investigation at another level of government and obstruct a possible criminal indictment,” the Maryland Democrat said in a statement.
Yesterday, as The Hill reported, Jordan went even further.
Jordan on Wednesday sent letters to Mark Pomerantz, former New York County Special Assistant District Attorney, and Carey Dunne, former Manhattan Special Assistant District Attorney, both of whom resigned from Bragg’s Trump investigation in February 2022 because they disagreed with the district attorney’s reluctance to try and indict Trump on the second grand jury that had been empaneled in the case.
Note, the Judiciary Committee chairman didn’t just request the prosecutors’ testimony, he also asked that Pomerantz and Dunne “hand over documents and communications.”
A variety of adjectives come to mind to describe such a dynamic, but for now, let’s go with “bonkers.”
Jordan has presented literally no evidence of prosecutorial misconduct. Bragg hasn’t even indicted the former president yet, and it’s open question as to whether such charges will…
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