House Republicans on the Judiciary Committee are exemplifying the lengths they are willing to go to discredit Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s criminal case against former President Donald Trump with a Monday New York field hearing on Bragg’s home turf.
The hearing, billed as focusing on crime in New York, comes as the legal drama between Bragg and House Republicans has intensified in recent days. Bragg sued House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and sought to block him from taking certain investigative steps, arguing that Congress doesn’t have oversight authority over state-level criminal prosecutions.
It also serves as the latest example of how Trump continues to wield enormous power on Capitol Hill as House Republicans seek to curry favor with the former president, coming to his defense through their investigations and routinely updating him and his closest advisers on their progress. In the wake of his indictment, Trump called up members of House GOP leadership and key committee members to shore up support on Capitol Hill, a person familiar with the matter told CNN.
Jordan, in a recent Fox News interview, slammed Bragg’s investigation and leapt to the former president’s defense.
“We have a constitutional duty to get to the facts, particularly when you have a district attorney interfering with the most important election we have, the commander-in-chief, the president of the United States,” Jordan told Fox.
Through their witnesses, House Republicans will seek to make the case that Bragg is more focused on going after Trump for political reasons than addressing crime in New York City, a claim Bragg vehemently denies. A spokesperson for the Manhattan DA’s office said in a statement posted to Twitter that the hearing is a “political stunt.”
Monday’s hearing will be the first in a series of field hearings focusing…
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