Republicans attack Bragg, spotlight NY crime
NEW YORK — One Republican bashed him as “procriminal.” Another called him a “terrible” prosecutor with a habit of losing cases. A third suggested he was in the pocket of a wealthy Jewish financier frequently demonized by the far right.
“He should resign and be disbarred,” declared Representative Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey.
Two weeks after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced 34 criminal charges against former president Donald Trump, House Republicans descended on his home turf Monday to hold a hearing attacking Bragg’s record on crime, leveling exaggerated and sometimes outright false charges. Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the Republican chair of the Judiciary Committee, convened his panel at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building to hear from an array witnesses who have been outspoken critics of Bragg for a session that was ostensibly about crime in New York City but whose unmistakable subtext was an effort to tarnish the man who is prosecuting Trump.
The result was a bitterly adversarial hearing that unfolded in a carnival-like atmosphere, drawing angry protesters from the left and the right who hoisted signs and hurled invective that was only slightly more vitriolic than the debate between Democratic and Republican lawmakers.
A single elected official most likely has little sway over crime trends in a major metropolitan area, and crime in Manhattan, where Bragg took office in January 2022, is down from last year by about 2.4 percent — although it remains up significantly from two years ago.
Still, Republicans used individual crime victims to try to impeach his record. One by one, the witnesses invited by Republicans told personal horror stories of their encounters with crime in the city, including suffering an antisemitic attack and losing a loved one in a brutal stabbing. The witnesses described New York — where crime has plummeted in recent decades but spiked during the pandemic, as in other cities — as being in a state of decay, and blamed Bragg’s policies.
Democrats pushed back against the Republican effort to vilify Bragg while laboring to show sympathy for the victims.
“I fear that you are being used for a political purpose, despite your sincerity,” said Representative Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California.
The hearing came a week after Bragg filed a lawsuit against Jordan seeking to stop congressional Republicans from interfering in his case against Trump — the product of a nearly fiveyear investigation that began under his predecessor — and specifically, to bar them from deposing Mark Pomerantz, a lawyer who worked on the inquiry for about a year.
Senate’s McConnell back at work, faces a full slate
WASHINGTON — Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is back at work in the US Capitol on Monday, almost six weeks after a fall at a Washington-area hotel and extended treatment for a concussion.
The longtime Kentucky senator, 81, has been recovering at home since he was released from a rehabilitation facility March 25. He fell after attending an event earlier that month, injuring his head and fracturing a rib.
McConnell arrived at the Capitol early Monday and is expected to work a full schedule in the Senate this week.
McConnell returns to the Senate ahead of a busy stretch in which Congress will have to find a way to raise the nation’s debt ceiling and negotiate additional aid for the Ukraine war, among other policy matters. And he comes back as several other senators have been out for medical reasons, raising questions about how much the Senate will be able to achieve in the coming months with a 51-49 split between the parties.
Already, the GOP leader’s absence, along with those of Democratic Senators Dianne Feinstein and John Fetterman, among others, have added to the Senate’s lethargic pace in the first few months of the year. And absences have made even simple votes like nominations more difficult.
One immediate question for McConnell upon his return is whether to help Democrats temporarily replace Feinstein on the Senate Judiciary Committee as she continues to recover in California from a case of the shingles. Democrats have become increasingly frustrated as the Democrat’s more than six-week absence on the panel has stalled confirmation of some of Biden’s nominees, and Feinstein has asked for a short-term substitute on the committee.
Democrats can’t do that, though, without help from Republicans, since approval of the process would take 60 votes on the Senate floor.
It is unclear when Feinstein, 89, will return to Washington. Her office has so far declined to say.
Also returning to the Senate on Monday was Fetterman, 53, who was hospitalized for depression in February. He was treated for six weeks at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and his doctors say his depression is now “in remission.”
The Pennsylvania Democrat now uses devices in conversations, meetings, and congressional hearings that transcribe spoken words in real time.
Manhattan judge denies Trump a delay in rape trial
NEW YORK — A Manhattan judge on Monday denied former president Donald Trump’s request for a one-month delay in the trial of a lawsuit against him by E. Jean Carroll, a magazine writer who has accused him of raping her in the mid-1990s.
Lawyers for Trump had sought to postpone the trial, scheduled to begin April 25, because of what they called a “deluge of prejudicial media coverage” concerning his recent indictment in Manhattan.
The judge, Lewis A. Kaplan of US District Court, said there was no justification for a postponement of the trial, noting the news coverage was largely — though not entirely — “invited or provoked by Mr. Trump’s own actions.”
Carroll’s lawyers, in objecting to the request for a delay, had argued there was no reason to assume adverse publicity concerning Trump would abate soon.
Santos says he’s running for reelection in New York
Representative George Santos of New York, the freshman Republican whose lies about his biography have triggered multiple federal, local and House investigations, announced on Monday that will run for reelection.
Santos made the announcement in a statement posted on social media.
‘‘As a first-generation American, I am no stranger to the issues affecting my district,’’ Santos said in a statement. ‘‘I’ve been in office for 100 days and through legislation and my votes I’ve already made significant efforts to honor’’ numerous campaign promises.
Santos is facing a House Ethics panel investigation and has stepped down from his House committee assignments.
He has fabricated details about his education, work, athletic achievements, ancestry, and his mother’s presence at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
Fellow Republicans in New York have called on Santos to resign and he’s drawn at least one Republican primary challenger, Kellen Curry, a military veteran turned business executive who promised “to restore honesty and integrity’’ to the district.