Prosecutor rebukes GOP scrutiny
Bragg: Congress trying to impede Trump case
NEW YORK — The Manhattan district attorney on Thursday responded to House Republicans who have scrutinized his office’s criminal investigation into Donald Trump, pushing back forcefully against what the office called an inappropriate attempt by Congress to impede a local prosecution.
The office of the district attorney, Alvin Bragg, was responding to a Monday letter demanding that he provide communications, documents and testimony about his investigation — an extraordinary request by three Republican committee chairs to involve themselves in an inquiry that is expected to result in criminal charges against the former president.
The response from the district attorney’s office, signed by its general counsel, Leslie Dubeck, called the request from the chairs “an unprecedented inquiry into a pending local prosecution.”
Prosecutors are typically barred from sharing information about an active investigation with third parties, and Dubeck noted in her letter that such information was “confidential under state law.”
“The letter’s requests are an unlawful incursion into New York’s sovereignty,” she wrote.
Bragg’s office is investigating the role Trump played in a hush-money payment to a porn actress, and there have been several signals that the prosecutors are nearing an indictment. Still, the exact timing remains unknown.
Although the special grand jury hearing evidence about Trump meets on Thursdays, it typically does not hear evidence about the Trump case that day, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Special grand juries, which unlike regular grand juries sit for months at a time and hear complex cases, routinely consider several cases simultaneously.
Republicans’ rush to align themselves with the former president, who on Saturday inaccurately predicted his imminent arrest and called on his supporters to protest Bragg’s inquiry, is playing out at a time of heightened political tension and threatens to further weaken public trust in the rule of law.
While it was once rare for elected officials to comment on independent inquiries for fear of seeming to influence them improperly, Trump’s willingness to wade in has led his party to embrace his method: tarring investigations as political while simultaneously politicizing those investigations.
While in office, Trump lashed out at investigations — most notably, the inquiry led by special counsel Robert Mueller — as politically biased, even as his attorney general, William Barr, challenged a federal case related to the hush-money payment that Bragg is now investigating. While president, Trump also trespassed on the Justice Department’s independence and fired both the FBI director and his first attorney general because he viewed them as insufficiently loyal.
Now, out of office, Trump is using his power over the Republican Party to encourage similar interference — this time into an investigation into a state crime by a local prosecutor operating under New York law.
Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-MD., a former prosecutor, said that he had been “astonished” to see the letter to Bragg, “essentially calling on him to violate grand jury secrecy laws in New York.” The letter was sent by Reps. Jim Jordan, Rohio, of the Judiciary Committee; James Comer, R-KY., of the Oversight and Accountability Committee; and Bryan Steil, R-wis., of the Administration Committee.
“My call was for those three to withdraw the letter immediately, hopefully recognizing the mistake that they had made, but that’s too much to ask, I suppose,” Ivey said.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., an ally of the district attorney, said that Jordan was “out of control” and was “trying to put his thumb on the scale for his friend Donald Trump.” Nadler expressed appreciation for Bragg’s response to the letter.