Alvin Bragg, the District Attorney of Manhattan, has agreed to testify before Congress on July 12, which is one day after former President Donald Trump’s sentencing for his 34 felony convictions.
A spokesperson for Bragg’s office said that Bragg would not challenge Congress’ request for a 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,” a spokesperson for the Manhattan DA’s office said
“Nonetheless, we respect our government institutions and plan to appear voluntarily before the subcommittee after sentencing.”
Bragg is supposedly appearing before Congress because he wants to, not because Congress told him to.
Still, it looks as if Bragg just gave up.
His spokesperson confirmed Tuesday that he would appear before the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. He will be joined by Matthew Colangelo, a former high-ranking Justice Department official who was hired by Bragg in 2022 and helped lead the investigation into Trump.
Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio has accused both Bragg and Colangelo of conducting a “political prosecution” in the case against the former president.
Trump, who is the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, was convicted last month of falsifying records to cover up hush money paid to a porn actor during the 2016 presidential campaign. He is scheduled to be sentenced on July 11. Before then, prosecutors will make recommendations to a judge about what kind of punishment Trump deserves.
Bragg, a Democrat, sued Jordan last year in an attempt to stop a House Judiciary Committee inquiry into Trump’s indictment. He later agreed to let the Republican-led committee question ex-prosecutor Mark Pomerantz, who once oversaw the investigation but left the job after clashing with Bragg over the direction of the case.
Soon after Trump’s arraignment in April 2023, Jordan took the Judiciary Committee on the road for a field hearing near Bragg’s offices to examine what he criticized as the Democrat’s “pro-crime, anti-victim” policies. Democrats described the hearing and various efforts since by Republicans as a partisan stunt aimed at amplifying conservative anger at Bragg.
Jordan has proposed withholding federal funding from any entity that attempts to prosecute a former president. He has also railed against what he’s described as the “weaponization of the federal government.” Before Trump’s verdict last month, Jordan sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, demanding information about the Justice Department’s role in the local prosecution of the former president.
The Justice Department responded in a letter on Tuesday, saying that while it does not “generally make extensive efforts to rebut conspiratorial speculation,” a review by the department of all communications from the start of the New York case in January 2021 until the verdict showed no contact between federal prosecutors and those involved in the hush money case.
“The District Attorney’s office is a separate entity from the Department. The Department does not supervise the work of the District Attorney’s office, does not approve its charging decisions, and does not try its cases,” Assistant Attorney General Carlos Uriarte said in the letter obtained by AP. “The Department has no control over the District Attorney, just as the District Attorney has no control over the Department.”
He added: “The Committee knows this.”
Bragg, a former civil rights lawyer and law professor, is in his first term as Manhattan’s district attorney. He inherited the Trump investigation when he took office in 2021. He oversaw the prosecution of Trump’s company in an unrelated tax fraud case before moving to indict Trump last year.
He and Colangelo previously worked together on Trump-related matters at the New York attorney general’s office. During the trial, Colangelo delivered the opening statement and questioned several witnesses, including former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.