Manhattan’s District Attorney Office run by 49-year-old Alvin Bragg has engaged the House Judiciary Committee in cheap political tricks. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), 59, questioned the validity of his indictment against 76-year-old former President Donald Trump. Jordan wants to know how much Democrat politics entered into his criminal indictment of Trump, with Bragg charging 34 Class E felonies for alleged bookkeeping infractions normally charged as misdemeanors. Jordan wants to know all of Bragg’s contacts in the Congress and Democratic National Committee [DNC] entering into his decision to charge Trump. Jordan plans told hearing April 17 in Manhattan to question unspecified witnesses in connection with Bragg’s April 4 indictment of the former president. Jordan wants to know the extent of how politics entered into Bragg’s indictments.
Politics are not supposed to subvert charging decisions, something dictated by the law, not vindictiveness of prosecutors having an ax to grind at politicians. When the Depart of Justice, CIA and FBI decided to investigate Trump in 2016, they did so to give former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton a leg up in the 2016 presidential election. That didn’t stop 67-year-old former CIA Director John Brennan from giving Hillary’s Steele dossier to 62-yea-old FBI Director James Comey for investigation. Knowing the source, namely, Hillary’s 2016 opposition research, Brennan and Comey went ahead with investigating Trump and the 2016 campaign. Trump sees the same government corruption happening again in Manhattan with Bragg’s 34-felony count indictment. Trump doesn’t buy for one minute that Bragg has anything more than a political witch-hunt against him.
Calling Jordan’s April 17 hearing a political stunt, Bragg’s office accused Jordan of meddling in an active criminal investigation. Jordan wants to interview certain witnesses connected to the decision to charge Trump with 34 Class E felonies. “If Chairman Jordan truly cared about public safety, he could take a short drive to Columbus, Dayton, Cincinnati, Akron or Toledo in his home state instead of using taxpayer dollars to travel hundreds of miles on his way,” said an unnamed Bragg aid. What’s Bragg’s office doing trying to discredit a Congressional investigation? Bragg ran his 2021 campaign for Manhattan DA promising to prosecute Trump after his predecessor Cyrus Vance Jr. decided to not file charges. What’s hard for Bragg to figure out that the day of the political witch-hunts are over. Trump has a right to know why he’s being charged for 34 Class E felonies when they are normal misdemeanors.
Former Atty. Gen. Bill Barr found Bragg’s 34 felony indictments missing any coherent theory on which to charge as felonies. Legal experts concur that Bragg went overboard charging Trump, attesting to the extreme prejudice with which he charged the former president. Jordan wants to figure out who influenced Bragg’s decision to move forward with the felony indictments. Before Barr retired as attorney general Dec. 23, 2020, he appointed 72-year-old former U.S. Atty. John Durham (R-Conn.) as Special Counsel to investigate the origin of the FBI counterintelligence investigation into Trump and his 2016 campaign. Democrats and media accused Trump of colluding with the Russian Federation to win the 2016 presidential election. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, after a 22-month, $40 million investigation, acquitted Trump of any wrongdoing March 23, 2019.
Jordan, as head of the Judiciary Committee, knows that weaponizing the criminal justice system violates the Constitution and rule of law. When former President Barack Obama authorized his former Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch to order the FBI under Comey to investigate Trump’s campaign, that abused the national security apparatus to go after a major party nominee. Bragg’s office is out of line accusing the House Judiciary Chairman to looking into whether or not politics played into the charging decision against Trump. Not one Democrat in Congress or member of the press admitted that past Russian stories about Trump’s ties to the Kremlin were based on Hillary’s fake dossier. Jordan wants to know whether the same political forces, this time in the Manhattan DA’s office, are subverting the Constitution and rule of law. Watching Bragg’s office attack Chairman Jordan shows they’ve stepped out of line.
Proving that Ohio has higher murder rates than New York City diverts attention away from whether politics influenced Bragg’s decision to charge Trump with 34 Class E felonies. Watching Bragg’s office go off on Jordan proves they’ve got something to hide when it comes to political pressure affecting a criminal justice decision. No American—Democrat, Republican or independent—should be OK with law enforcement agencies using the system for cheap political tricks. If Trump’s defense team shows that Bragg’s office engaged in naked politics to charge Trump, then Trump’s case must be tossed out. Bragg and his deputy DAs must be prosecuted for using the criminal justice system to get back at former President Trump. Diverting attention to NYC murder rates compared with Ohio’s doesn’t discount what Bragg’s office did to charge Trump with 34 Class E felonies when misdemeanors were the appropriate charge.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
