House GOP committees are giving Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg until this Friday to comply with their request for information regarding the latter’s plot to arrest 45th President Donald Trump, even after Bragg has remained defiant against Congress’s requests.
Reps. Jim Jordan, Bryan Steil, and James Comer, representing the House Judiciary Committee, House Administration Committee, and Oversight Committee have sent a second letter to Bragg, informing the liberal prosecutor that Congress considers his protests invalid, and he has until March 31 to comply with Congress’s request for information regarding his investigation and rumored plot to arrest Trump.
Bragg initially discarded the House’s request for oversight, claiming it does not have jurisdiction over the state-level misdemeanor crime which Bragg is elevating to a felony in pursuit of a Trump arrest. From the letter:
Notably, your reply letter did not dispute the central allegations at issue – that you, under political pressure from left-wing activists and former prosecutors in your office, are reportedly planning to use an alleged federal campaign finance violation, previously declined by federal prosecutors, as a vehicle to extend the statute of limitations on an otherwise misdemeanor offense and indict for the first time in history a former President of the United States. Moreover, you are apparently attempting to upgrade a misdemeanor charge to a felony using an untested legal theory at the same time when you are simultaneously downgrading felony charges to misdemeanors in a majority of other cases in your jurisdiction.
The legislators added, pointedly: “This matter does not simply involve local or state interests. Rather, the potential criminal indictment” of a former President “by an elected prosecutor of the opposing political party implicates substantial federal interest.”
Bragg replied to Congress’s letter with a tweet over the weekend. “We evaluate cases in our jurisdiction based on facts, the law, and the evidence,” Bragg asserted. He then declared that “This unpredecended inquiry” “serves only to hinder” his investigation.
https://t.co/8r47C0rdPy pic.twitter.com/dTmZpnEe9K
— Alvin Bragg (@ManhattanDA) March 25, 2023
Bragg has summoned a Grand Jury that was reportedly in the final days of deciding whether to indict Trump last week, resulting in the former president spreading news of his forthcoming arrest, when a final witness informed the jurors they were missing troves of documents suppressed by Bragg.
That witness, Bob Costello, was formerly the attorney for disgraced lawyer Michael Cohen, who was reportedly set to testify as well. Costello told the Grand Jury, and the media, that he supplied 330 emails to Bragg, but discovered during his testimony that only a handful of the documents were supplied.
“Don’t cherry pick six emails out of 330 and then ask Costello questions about it. That’s not fair, by anybody’s standard,” said Costello in a now viral clip.
"Michael Cohen is far from solid evidence:" Cohen's former legal advisor Robert Costello attacked his ex-client's credibility as the "star witness" in the hush money case against former President Donald Trump. More: https://t.co/crLKBCYjsW pic.twitter.com/TYRpvSmR9W
— NewsNation (@NewsNation) March 20, 2023
