The chairman of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government announced Friday that he is calling on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and prosecutor Matthew Colangelo to testify next month about “the unprecedented political prosecution of President Trump.”
“This hearing will examine actions by state and local prosecutors to engage politically motivated prosecutions of federal officials, in particular the political prosecution of President Donald Trump by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) wrote in letters to Bragg and Colangelo.
The move comes one day after Bragg secured a conviction of Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016. Critics have slammed the prosecution a “weaponization” of the U.S. justice system against Joe Biden’s chief political opponent.
Colangelo is a former DNC political consultant and top official in the Biden Justice Department who left his post at the DOJ to to take a lesser position in Bragg’s office as senior counsel in the “Hush Money” case.
Jordan asked the two prosecutors to testify before the Subcommittee on June 13, and reportedly plans to ask former Federal Election Commissioner Brad Smith to appear at the hearing as well.
During the trial, Judge Juan Merchan barred Smith from testifying about the intricacies of the campaign finance laws at the heart of Bragg’s case against Trump.
Smith, an “outspoken opponent” of the prosecution, had previously “argued that there are all sorts of things a candidate can spend money on that are not legally classifiable as ‘for the purpose of influencing any election,’” including the nondisclosure agreement Trump reached with Daniels.
The judge “barred Smith from testifying about the campaign finance laws at the heart of Bragg’s charges against Trump,” Byron York reported. “He barred Smith from testifying about anything except general facts about the job of the FEC or the definition of some common campaign terms. In the end, the Trump team decided it was not worth calling Smith to testify under what amounted to a judicial gag order.”
In a statement following the verdict Thursday, Jordan called the entire process “a travesty of justice.”
“The Manhattan kangaroo court shows what happens when our justice system is weaponized by partisan prosecutors in front of a biased judge with an unfair process, designed to keep President Trump off the campaign trail and avoid bringing attention to President Biden’s failing radical policies,” the chairman said. “Americans see through Democrats’ lawfare tactics and know President Trump will be vindicated on appeal.”
Congressional hearings are about as useful as wings on a pig.
Have to agree with Max on this one. It’s all well & good to air the dirty laundry ( or try to) but what is going to be done about it? Unless you can find a way the get the information to the persuadable and actually take action to stop this sort of behavior, these hearing amount to nothing
“Have you no shame…Mr. Bragg?”
Mr. Bragg…NOPE