WASHINGTON — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the hush money case against former President Donald Trump, will testify before the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee in July, along with prosecutor Matthew Colangelo, a source familiar with the plans confirmed Tuesday to NBC News.
“The Manhattan D.A.’s Office is proud to play a crucial role in upholding and enforcing the rule of law for the people of New York,” a Bragg spokesman said Tuesday, confirming the district attorney’s planned testimony. “It undermines the rule of law to spread dangerous misinformation, baseless claims, and conspiracy theories following the jury’s return of a full-count felony conviction in People v. Trump.”
“Nonetheless, we respect our government institutions and plan to appear voluntarily before the subcommittee after sentencing,” the spokesman said.
The July 12 public hearing on Capitol Hill is one day after Trump’s sentencing hearing in New York after a Manhattan jury found him guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. The Judiciary panel also announced that it will hold a separate hearing this Thursday to “examine Alvin Bragg’s political prosecution of President Trump.”
The hearings come as Trump and his GOP allies on Capitol Hill, including Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wage war on the justice system. They’ve claimed that Bragg, local Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis, as well as special counsel Jack Smith and other federal prosecutors, are politically targeting Trump ahead of the presidential election.
Jordan, a conservative firebrand and close Trump ally, announced the upcoming hearing with Bragg on Tuesday morning, just as President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, was found guilty of three federal charges tied to the possession of a gun while using narcotics.
Jordan and other Republicans have suggested that DOJ colluded with Bragg, pointing the finger directly at Colangelo, who joined Bragg’s prosecution team after working at DOJ and the New York attorney general’s office, where he investigated the Trump Foundation.
But on Tuesday, a Justice Department official wrote a letter to Jordan pushing back on “conspiratorial speculation” about non-existent collusion between the DOJ and Bragg.
Assistant Attorney General Carlos Felipe Uriarte of DOJ’s Office of Legislative Affairs wrote in a letter, obtained by NBC News, that the agency had conducted a “comprehensive” search for email communications between Jan. 20, 2021, and the day of Trump’s conviction and found no emails about the Trump prosecution, saying it was “unsurprising” given that the Manhattan DA and DOJ are separate entities.
“The Department does not generally make extensive efforts to rebut conspiratorial speculation, including to avoid the risk of lending it credibility. However, consistent with the Attorney General’s commitment to transparency, the Department has taken extraordinary steps to confirm what was already clear: there is no basis for these false claims,” the letter stated.
Uriarte’s letter, first reported by ABC News, said that DOJ’s “extraordinary” efforts to respond to Jordan’s “speculation” should put the issue to rest.
“The self-justifying ‘perception’ asserted by the Committee is completely baseless, but the Committee continues to traffic it widely. As the Attorney General stated at his hearing, the conspiracy theory that the recent jury verdict in New York state court was somehow controlled by the Department is not only false, it is irresponsible,” he wrote.
“Indeed, accusations of wrongdoing made without—and in fact contrary to—evidence undermine confidence in the justice system and have contributed to increased threats of violence and attacks on career law enforcement officials and prosecutors,” the letter said.
On May 31, Jordan formally requested that Bragg and Colangelo — a member of the Trump trial team and a former Justice Department official — testify before the Judiciary subcommittee on the weaponization of the government, which is also led by Jordan.
Specifically, Jordan said his hearing would explore politically motivated state and local prosecutions, including Bragg’s case against Trump.
On Friday, Bragg’s general counsel, Leslie Dubeck, responded that he would be willing to testify but needed a new hearing date to allow for the fair administration of justice in the Trump case, which will continue through the July 11 sentencing.
She also requested an opportunity to speak with Jordan’s staff about the “scope and purpose of the proposed hearing” so that he can “accommodate the Committee’s invitation while also protecting the integrity of an ongoing criminal prosecution and New York’s sovereign interests.”
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