The potential indictment of former President Donald Trump by New York prosecutors would be an unprecedented miscarriage of justice, some top Republicans in the House of Representatives argued Monday.
In a letter to New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg — who Trump claims will arrest him this week — top House Republicans blasted Bragg and demanded details about the investigation.
“You will reportedly be involved in an unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority: the indictment of the former President of the United States and the current announced candidate for that office,” Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), James Comer (R-Ky). .) and Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) said in a letter.
The three chair the House Judiciary Committee, the House Oversight Committee and the House Administration Committee, all of which have conducted investigations into Trump’s political opponents.
Trump said in a post on his social media site over the weekend that he expected to be arrested on Tuesday as part of Bragg’s investigation into whether he broke the law with a 2016 cash payment to Stormy Daniels, a former porn star he says he owns. sex with Trump in 2006.
Trump is also being investigated by state and federal prosecutors for his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and his refusal to return public documents at the end of his term.
“This indictment comes after years of your office looking for a basis – any basis – for an indictment, finally settling on a novel legal theory that has not been tested anywhere in the country and that has not been tried by federal authorities,” Jordan, Comer and Steil said. wrote in a letter to Bragg.
“If these reports are accurate, your actions will undermine confidence in the fair and unimpeachable administration of justice during the 2024 presidential election,” the Republican wrote.
Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen told Congress in 2019 that he arranged a $130,000 payment to Daniels for Trump just weeks before the election. Trump later reimbursed Cohen with multiple payments during his first year as president.
“He asked me to pay an adult movie star who had had an affair with him, and cheated on his wife, which I did,” Cohen said. “I will go to jail in part because of my decision to help Mr. Trump hide these payments from the American people before they vote a few days later.”
Cohen pleaded guilty to various federal charges in 2018, including campaign finance violations related to payments to Daniels and another woman. Prosecutors said Cohen’s payments included donations to the Trump campaign that exceeded legal limits.
In a letter Monday, the three Republicans said Cohen lacked credibility as a witness in Bragg’s case, calling him “a convicted felon with provable prejudice against President Trump.” They asked Bragg to provide correspondence with federal prosecutors who declined to charge Trump in the case, and any documents showing the use of federal funds by the New York County District Attorney’s Office.
In response to Trump’s claim that he would be detained, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) vowed that a House committee would “immediately investigate if federal funds are used to undermine our democracy by interfering in elections with politically motivated prosecutions.”
Since January, the Judiciary Committee in Jordan has been investigating allegations of “government arms” against Trump supporters, including those who rioted at the US Capitol. The Oversight Committee in Comer has tried to link President Joe Biden’s son Hunter with the Chinese Communist Party, and the Administration Committee in Steil is trying to rewrite the history of what happened on January 6, 2021.
The reaction to Trump’s claims that he will be jailed this week is reminiscent of Republicans’ furious response to the FBI raid of Trump’s residence in Florida last summer: The standard attitude is that prosecutors are overreaching and Trump is innocent.
House Judiciary Committee Member Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) said in a tweet there was that Bragg did not owe Jordan any information, and it was illegal for the committee “to interfere in the criminal investigation of the active investigation.”