By MICHAEL R. SISAK | Associated Press
NEW YORK — Republicans upset with Donald Trump’s indictment are escalating their war on the prosecutor who charged him, trying to embarrass Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on his home turf partly by falsely portraying New York City as a place overrun by crime.
The House Judiciary Committee, led by Ohio Republican Jim Jordan, held a field hearing Monday near Bragg’s offices to examine the Democrat’s “pro-crime, anti-victim” policies.
New York City has “lost its way when it comes to fighting crime and upholding the law,” Jordan said. “Here in Manhattan, the scales of justice are weighed down by politics.”
Democrats said the hearing was a partisan stunt aimed at amplifying conservative anger at Bragg, Manhattan’s first Black district attorney.
“It is really troubling that American taxpayers’ dollars are being used to come here on this junket to do an examination of the safest big city in America instead of focusing on the real over-proliferation of guns that we have witnessed,” said Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat and former police captain.
Adams called the hearing an “in-kind donation” to the Trump campaign. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, called it “a circus.”
New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the committee’s ranking Democrat, said: “Jim Jordan engages in a lot of political theater in Washington, but he should know better than to take his tired act to Broadway. New Yorkers see through this transparent attempt to defend Donald Trump at all costs while ignoring the real public safety needs of our community.”
Interrupted several times by outbursts from protesters, Monday’s hearing was the latest salvo in Jordan’s weekslong effort to use his congressional powers to defend Trump from what he says is a politically motivated prosecution.
Jordan has sent letters to Bragg demanding testimony and documents, claiming Bragg’s office is subject to…
Read the full article here
