WASHINGTON (AP) — Manhattan District Lawyer Alvin Bragg has agreed to testify earlier than Congress on July 12, a day after former President Donald Trump’s sentencing in his hush cash trial.
A spokesperson for Bragg’s workplace confirmed Tuesday that he’ll seem earlier than the Home Choose Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Authorities alongside Matthew Colangelo, the previous high-ranking Justice Division official who was employed by Bragg in 2022 and helped lead the Trump investigation.
Bragg and Colangelo will face what’s more likely to be a hostile, Republican-controlled listening to the place the chairman, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio has accused each males of conducting a “political prosecution” within the case in opposition to the previous president. It should mark the newest effort by Trump’s closest allies in Congress to discredit the current 34-count conviction by going after native and federal prosecutors who’ve charged him.
“It undermines the rule of regulation to unfold harmful misinformation, baseless claims, and conspiracy theories following the jury’s return of a full-count felony conviction in Folks v. Trump,” a spokesperson for the Manhattan DA’s workplace stated. “Nonetheless, we respect our authorities establishments and plan to seem voluntarily earlier than the subcommittee after sentencing.”
Trump, the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee, was convicted final month of falsifying data to cowl up hush cash paid to a porn actor in the course of the 2016 presidential marketing campaign and is scheduled to be sentenced on July 11. Earlier than then, prosecutors shall be making suggestions to a decide about what sort of punishment Trump deserves.
Bragg, a Democrat, sued Jordan final yr, looking for to halt a Home Judiciary Committee inquiry into Trump’s indictment. He later agreed to let the Republican-led committee query ex-prosecutor Mark Pomerantz, who as soon as oversaw the investigation however left the job after clashing with Bragg over the path of the case.
Quickly after Trump’s April 2023 arraignment, Jordan took the Judiciary Committee on the highway for a subject listening to close to Bragg’s workplaces to look at what he decried because the Democrat’s “pro-crime, anti-victim” insurance policies. Democrats described the listening to and numerous efforts since by Republicans as a partisan stunt geared toward amplifying conservative anger at Bragg.
Jordan has proposed withholding federal funding from any entity that makes an attempt to prosecute a former president. He has additionally railed in opposition to what he’s described because the “weaponization of the federal authorities.” Earlier than Trump’s verdict final month, Jordan despatched a letter to Lawyer Basic Merrick Garland, demanding details about the Justice Division’s position within the native prosecution of the previous president.
The Justice Division responded in a letter Tuesday, saying that whereas it doesn’t “usually make in depth efforts to rebut conspiratorial hypothesis,” a assessment by the division of all communications from the beginning of the New York case in January 2021 till the decision confirmed no contact between federal prosecutors and people concerned within the hush cash case.
“The District Lawyer’s workplace is a separate entity from the Division. The Division doesn’t supervise the work of the District Lawyer’s workplace, doesn’t approve its charging choices, and doesn’t attempt its circumstances,” Assistant Lawyer Basic Carlos Uriarte stated within the letter obtained by AP. “The Division has no management over the District Lawyer, simply because the District Lawyer has no management over the Division.”
He added: “The Committee is aware of this.”
Bragg, a former civil rights lawyer and regulation professor, is in his first time period as Manhattan’s district lawyer. He inherited the Trump investigation when he took workplace in 2021. He oversaw the prosecution of Trump’s firm in an unrelated tax fraud case earlier than transferring to indict Trump final yr.
He and Colangelo beforehand labored collectively on Trump-related issues on the New York lawyer common’s workplace. Through the trial, Colangelo delivered the opening assertion and questioned a number of witnesses together with former White Home Communications Director Hope Hicks.
