Alvin Bragg fires back at Jim Jordan

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is suing House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and other Republicans on the panel for what he calls an “unprecedently brazen and unconstitutional attack by members of Congress” on his office over the criminal prosecution of former President Donald Trump.

This month, Bragg’s office charged Trump with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records tied to allegations that the former president unlawfully attempted to conceal “hush money” payments made by his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to ex-adult-film star Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence about an alleged 2006 affair she had with Trump.

The prosecution, which marks the first for a sitting or former president in U.S. history, has been characterized by Trump allies as politically motivated, while they have targeted Bragg for his campaign promises to indict the president and over his office’s own criminal justice policies.

Nobody has been more vocal in that fight than Jordan, a conservative firebrand who has wielded the House Judiciary Committee in his first few months as chair as a cudgel against the federal bureaucracy and those he says seek to “weaponize” the government and the judiciary against their political foes.

This week, Jordan announced his committee would be holding a field hearing mere blocks from Bragg’s offices to “hear from victims of Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s radical policies.”

His committee previously announced it would be launching a wide-ranging investigation into the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and a former attorney on the case, Mark Pomerantz, over its investigation into the former president in what Jordan described as an “unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority.”

Critics of the effort quickly criticized Jordan’s approach, saying he potentially ran afoul of New York state law in what could be seen as an effort to interfere with an ongoing criminal case.

Bragg now seems to be testing that theory.

In a Tuesday filing in United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, attorneys representing Bragg’s office alleged Jordan sought to interfere in the case against the former president through what he characterized as a “transparent” campaign of intimidation against his office using powers Congress does not even have.

“Congress has no power to supervise state criminal prosecutions,” they wrote in the suit. “Nor does Congress have the power to serve subpoenas ‘for the personal aggrandizement of the investigators or to punish those investigated.’ Yet that is precisely what Chairman Jordan is trying to do.”

Jordan, they added, “has no legitimate legislative purpose for issuing this subpoena,” they added, arguing that it “threatens the sovereign powers of the States, confidence in the secrecy of grand jury proceedings, and the integrity of an ongoing criminal prosecution.”

“The charges the District Attorney filed against Mr. Trump were approved by citizens of New York,” they wrote. “They did their civic duty as members of a grand jury pursuant to the federal Constitution and laws of the State of New York.”

Like any other defendant, they added, Trump is “entitled to challenge these charges in court.”

“He can avail himself of all the processes and protections that New York State’s robust criminal procedure affords,” they wrote. “But rather than allowing the criminal process to proceed in the ordinary course, Chairman Jordan and the Committee are participating in a campaign of intimidation, retaliation, and obstruction.”

The lawsuit comes after alleged efforts by Trump to interfere in the case against him through vitriolic claims that he would “wage war” if he were indicted, including a post on his Truth Social platform showing a picture of a baseball bat-wielding Trump superimposed next to a photo of Bragg’s head.

As a result, they wrote in their lawsuit, Bragg had received “multiple death threats,” including in one instance receiving a package containing suspicious white powder with a note making a specific death threat against him. Jordan—and other members of Congress—were only adding fuel to the fire by leading investigations against Bragg, according to the lawsuit.

“Since Mr. Trump falsely predicted he would be arrested on March 18, 2023, in fact, the District Attorney’s Office has received more than 1,000 calls and emails from Mr. Trump’s supporters, many of which are threatening and racially charged,” the lawsuit read. “But rather than denounce efforts to vilify and denigrate the District Attorney and the grand jury process, House Republicans are participating in those efforts.”

Reached for comment, a spokesperson for Jordan’s office directed a Newsweek reporter to a tweet from the congressman’s official account criticizing the suit.

“First, they indict a president for no crime,” Jordan wrote. “Then, they sue to block congressional oversight when we ask questions about the federal funds they say they used to do it.”

Newsweek has also reached out to Pomerantz’s office via email for comment.