Donald Trump’s Republican allies in the House are doing what the former president taught them to do – use government power to try to keep his legal threats at bay.
After Trump warned he could be arrested, his allies have been using their new House majority to demand Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s testimony and seek to thwart his investigation relating to an alleged hush money payment to an adult film star before the 2016 election. It looks like an extraordinary attempt to influence an open grand jury investigation.
In fact, the House GOP appears to be using the exact same tactic they accuse the Biden administration, Bragg and any other investigators on Trump’s trail of employing – weaponizing the powers of government to advance a partisan political end.
Yet there are also sufficient doubts about a possible prosecution assembled by Bragg – and the unusual nature of potential charges relating to business and electoral law violations – to fuel questions from nonpartisan legal experts about the case perhaps not living up to its billing. This is an especially fateful issue given the gravity of any potential case against a former president.
Trump’s calls for protests, meanwhile, have authorities on edge in New York, where security cameras and barricades have been erected, and in Washington amid painful flashbacks to his incitement of violence to further his personal and political ends on January 6, 2021.
Then there is the growing circus atmosphere around this drama, which was fueled by Trump’s weekend prediction that he’d be arrested on Tuesday. A source close to Trump’s legal team told CNN on Monday that they do not have any guidance on the timing of a potential indictment beyond that they been told by the DA that nothing is expected Tuesday. While an indictment could happen as soon as this week, it is more likely that any…
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