Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has tentatively agreed to testify before Congress after his office secured a historic guilty verdict against former President Donald Trump.
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan sent a letter asking for Bragg’s testimony May 31, the day after a New York jury found Trump guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. The former president is facing the possibility of time behind bars.
Jordan had suggested a date of June 13, which Bragg rejected. He suggested a date after Trump’s sentencing hearing next month would be more appropriate, according to a letter signed Friday by Leslie Dubreck, general counsel for his office.
It would be “potentially detrimental” to the “fair administration of justice” for members of Bragg’s office to participate in a hearing where they may face questions on the Trump case before the former president’s sentencing date, which is now set for July 11, Dubreck’s letter read.
Jordan wants Bragg to appear before his Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which was set up last year to respond to right-wing grievances.
Bragg’s office requested more information on the “scope and purpose” of the proposed hearing. Jordan also invited prosecuting attorney Michael Colangelo to testify; Dubeck’s letter indicated that could be a possibility.
Trump has claimed without evidence that President Joe Biden somehow orchestrated the New York trial, which centered around a 2016 hush money payment to the porn actor Stormy Daniels. Trump’s allies in Congress have pushed the idea that he is being unfairly prosecuted; Jordan’s initial letter to Bragg referred to the Trump trial as a “recent political prosecution.”
Colangelo has become an object of right-wing derision because he used to work for the Department of Justice. The allegations of partisan collusion against him ignore the department’s longstanding policy of independence from the office of the presidency, despite the aberrations of the Trump era. The Trump hush money trial was also held at the state level; the decision to prosecute was made by state officials led by Bragg, independent of federal agencies.