Bragg Agrees to Testify Before House Judiciary Committee—but Will He Actually Show Up?
In a surprise move to some, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has agreed to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan's demand that he appear before Congress to answer questions about whether his successful prosecution of former President Donald Trump on business fraud charges was politically motivated.
Trump was convicted on 34 counts on May 30.
Now it could be Bragg’s turn to be the star witness:
Bragg’s response comes after House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) demanded in a letter last month that Bragg and Matthew Colangelo, another prosecutor in the case, testify at a June 13 hearing on “the unprecedented political prosecution of President Trump.” Now, the prosecutors responded Friday saying the office was “committed to voluntary cooperation,” the district attorney’s counsel Leslie Dubeck said in a letter obtained by The Hill.
As we reported, Jordan had sent a letter on May 31 “requesting” Bragg’s appearance. He summed up the point of the hearing in the document:
This hearing will examine actions by state and local prosecutors to engage politically motivated prosecutions of federal officials, in particular the recent political prosecution of President Donald Trump by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
Dear Alvin Bragg: Jim Jordan and the Select Subcommittee on Weaponization Would Like a Word
The committee also sent a virtually identical letter to Matthew Colangelo (the former "number three" Biden Justice Department official, who stepped down from that role to serve as a lead prosecutor on the Trump prosecution team in Bragg's office). It’s unclear from Bragg’s response whether Colangelo will also appear.
In the [Bragg] letter, they also said Colangelo’s testimony was not out of the picture, but they wanted to “evaluate the propriety” considering the active status of the prosecution.
They also sounded pretty cagey about exactly when Bragg would appear and fell back on that old standby, “scheduling conflicts.”
“The trial court and reviewing appellate courts have issued numerous orders for the purpose of protecting the fair administration of justice in People v. Trump, and to participate in a public hearing at this time would be potentially detrimental to those efforts,” they wrote in the letter.
Dubeck also asked Jordan’s office for more information about “the scope and purpose of the proposed hearing” and a chance to negotiate a different date.
In other words, they will draw this thing out as long as humanly possible—potentially until after the November presidential election, if they get their way.
If Bragg does indeed show up, it would make for a fiery hearing. Many leading pundits and politicians on both sides of the political aisle thought the case was highly questionable and a clear weaponization of the New York justice system. Jordan called the outcome of the case a “travesty of justice” and has threatened to hold back funding from the Justice Department that had been designated for Trump investigations. Expect the Ohio congressman to Iight into Bragg and attempt to shred his motivations for going after the former president on such ludicrous charges.
If he gets the chance.
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