NEW YORK (AP) — Republicans upset with Donald Trump’s indictment are escalating their battle on the prosecutor who charged him, making an attempt to embarrass him on his residence turf partly by falsely portraying New York Metropolis as a spot overrun by crime.
The Home Judiciary Committee, led by U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, is holding a area listening to Monday close to the workplaces of Manhattan District Lawyer Alvin Bragg.
The committee’s Republican majority is billing it as an examination of the Democrat’s “pro-crime, anti-victim” insurance policies. One committee member, U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, an Arizona Republican, tweeted that Bragg has “turned NYC right into a wasteland,” and that “lawlessness is totally uncontrolled.”
Democrats say the listening to is a partisan stunt aimed toward amplifying conservative anger at Bragg, Manhattan’s first Black district lawyer.
New York Metropolis officers have urged Jordan to cancel the listening to. C-SPAN has declined to air it on TV.
“That is merely an in-kind donation or contribution to the Trump marketing campaign,” Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat and former police captain advised CNN Friday. “That is actually a charade and it’s simply unlucky, throughout a time like this, they are going to use taxpayers {dollars} to host this charade.”
Monday’s listening to is the most recent salvo in Jordan’s weekslong effort to make use of his congressional powers to defend Trump from what he says is a politically motivated prosecution.
Jordan has despatched letters to Bragg demanding testimony and paperwork, claiming his workplace is topic to congressional scrutiny as a result of it will get federal grants. He subpoenaed a former prosecutor, Mark Pomerantz, who beforehand oversaw the Trump investigation.
Bragg sued Jordan final week to attempt to block the subpoena, calling it a “brazen and unconstitutional assault” and a “clear marketing campaign to intimidate” him over the Trump case. A federal decide scheduled an preliminary listening to for Wednesday.
Monday brings a Home listening to designed to pump up the argument that Bragg is so targeted on Trump, he’s letting avenue crime flourish.
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Attacking New York Metropolis, and its largely Democratic leaders, over crime is an previous trick for politicians who signify rural and suburban districts. It’s a punch that may nonetheless land with some audiences, although in actuality town’s violent crime price stays considerably beneath the U.S. common.
In 2022, Bragg’s first 12 months in workplace, there have been 78 homicides in Manhattan, a borough of 1.6 million individuals. That was a drop of 15 p.c from the 12 months earlier than. By comparability, Palm Seaside County, Florida, the place Trump is one in every of about 1.5 million residents, had 96 killings.
“Individuals hear New York they usually assume crime, and that’s as a result of they’ve been educated to assume that manner,” stated Dr. Jeffrey Butts, the director of the Analysis & Analysis Heart at John Jay Faculty of Felony Justice in Manhattan. “It’s not actual. It’s simply the tales that folks inform.”
“For those who’re residing in some predominantly small, white county in Iowa, you hear New York and also you simply think about all of the scary motion pictures and TV reveals you’ve seen,” Butts stated. “I believe that’s what Congress is enjoying off of.”
For Bragg, scrutiny from Republicans — and even some Democrats — is nothing new.
A Harvard-educated, former federal prosecutor, chief deputy state lawyer normal and civil rights lawyer, Bragg received an eight-way Democratic occasion main after which soared to victory with 83% of the final election vote.
Quickly after taking workplace, Bragg authored an inner memo that, amongst different issues, stated his workplace wouldn’t prosecute sure low-level misdemeanors.
That arrange some early clashes with the New York Police Division management and likewise obtained the eye of Republicans outdoors town, who rapidly made Bragg a poster little one for Democratic permissiveness.
Republican Lee Zeldin, then representing jap Lengthy Island in Congress, made Bragg a focus of his marketing campaign for governor, repeatedly promising to take away the independently elected prosecutor from workplace.
Zeldin misplaced, however his rhetoric about crime resonated within the suburbs, serving to Republicans defeat Democrats in a lot of key New York seats.
New York, in truth, wasn’t immune from the nationwide spike in crime that happened through the COVID-19 pandemic. Most classes of crime within the metropolis are nonetheless above 2019 ranges. A number of sorts of crime, together with burglaries, automobile thefts and assaults, rose in Manhattan throughout Bragg’s first 12 months in workplace, although they’ve been falling once more this 12 months.
Regardless of specializing in Bragg, the Home Judiciary Committee has not invited him to testify, neither is anybody from his workplace anticipated to take part. As an alternative, the committee is planning to listen to from at the very least six witnesses.
Amongst them: Jose Alba, a former comfort retailer clerk arrested after he stabbed an attacker to dying in his store. Bragg’s workplace dropped the fees however critics say he ought to have dismissed them sooner; Madeline Brame, who blames Bragg for searching for lengthy jail sentences just for two of the 4 individuals concerned in her son’s killing; and Jennifer Harrison, a sufferer advocate whose boyfriend was killed in New Jersey in 2005 — outdoors Bragg’s jurisdiction and lengthy earlier than he took workplace.
Bragg’s marketing campaign despatched an e-mail to supporters Friday deriding the listening to as a “politically motivated sham.” U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., the committee’s rating Democrat, advised the information outlet Gothamist the listening to is “an assault on our system of justice.”
On Sunday, Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., known as the deliberate listening to “a circus if there ever was one.”
Since taking energy within the Home, Republicans have launched a sweeping oversight agenda delving into the far reaches of President Joe Biden’s administration, his household and the workings of the federal authorities.
Whereas conducting oversight is a key operate of Congress, the Home GOP’s wide-ranging probes have usually delivered extra sizzle than substance. Lengthy on allegations, committees led by Jordan and others have been sluggish to supply findings that resonate and generally have diverged into conspiracy theories.
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Related Press reporters David B. Caruso in New York and Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.
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Observe Michael Sisak on Twitter at twitter.com/mikesisak and ship confidential ideas by visiting https://www.ap.org/ideas/.