Republicans who are outraged by Donald Trump’s indictment have intensified their campaign of intimidation against the prosecutor who brought the case, partly by falsely presenting New York City as a city rife with crime to bring shame to the prosecutor in his backyard.
The House Judiciary Committee is chaired by a U.S. Near the offices of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan will conduct a field hearing on Monday.
The “pro-crime, anti-victim” policies of the Democrats are being examined, according to the Republican majority on the committee. One U.S. citizen was a committee member. A Republican from Arizona named Rep. Andy Biggs tweeted that Bragg has “turned NYC into a wasteland” and that “lawlessness is completely out of control.”
The hearing, according to Democrats, is a partisan gimmick designed to inflame conservative resentment of Bragg, Manhattan’s first Black district attorney.
Officials from New York City have requested Jordan to postpone the hearing. C-SPAN declined to broadcast it on television.
Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, and former police captain, told CNN on Friday that “this is merely an in-kind donation or contribution to the Trump campaign.”
“This is a charade, and, unfortunately, they will use taxpayer funds to host this charade at this time,”
The hearing on Monday is the most recent shot in Jordan’s months-long campaign to use his legislative authority to defend Trump against what he claims is a politically driven investigation.
Jordan claims that because his agency receives federal money, it is under congressional inspection and has written letters to Bragg demanding testimony and records.
He summoned Mark Pomerantz, a federal prosecutor previously in charge of the Trump inquiry.
Bragg filed a lawsuit against Jordan last week to have the subpoena thrown out. He described it as a “brazen and unconstitutional attack” and a “transparent campaign to intimidate” him because of the Trump case.
An initial hearing has been scheduled on Wednesday by a federal court.
A House hearing is scheduled for Monday to bolster the claim that since Bragg is so preoccupied with Trump, he allows street violence to flourish.
Politicians representing rural and suburban districts frequently use this old ruse to criticize New York City’s officials, primarily Democrats, for the city’s crime rate. It is a blow.
In Manhattan, a borough of 1.6 million inhabitants, there were 78 homicides in 2022, Bragg’s first year in office.
That represented a reduction of 15% from the prior year. In contrast, there were 96 murders in Palm Beach County, Florida, home to nearly 1.5 million people, including Trump.
“People hear New York and think crime, and that’s because they’ve been trained to think that way,” said Dr. Jeffrey Butts, the center’s director at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan. It’s not genuine. Just stories that people have told about it.
When someone from a tiny, predominately white Iowa county hears the word, New York, they automatically think of all the spooky movies and TV series they have watched, according to Butts. “I believe that’s the angle Congress is taking.”
Republican and even some Democratic skepticism of Bragg is nothing new.
Harvard-educated former federal prosecutor, top deputy state attorney general, and civil rights attorney Bragg won the Democratic party’s eight-way primary before sweeping the general election with 83% of the vote.
Bragg wrote an internal memo shortly after assuming office in which, among other things, he said that his agency would not pursue some low-level offenses.
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