Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has agreed to testify before a Republican-led House committee about the hush money lawsuit against former President Donald Trump. According to multiple reports.
Last month, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) called on Bragg to testify at a meeting scheduled for June 13 about “an unprecedented political prosecution of President Trump.”
Jordan also targeted Bragg County Attorney Matthew Colangelo, who bounced around from New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office to the Justice Department before it was announced he would join the Manhattan district attorney’s team in 2022.
Critics have said it was unusual for Colangelo to leave a federal job to become a local prosecutor, and President Trump has accused him of being politically motivated.
Bragg’s office has not ruled out the possibility of allowing Colangelo to testify, but said the request requires further review.
District attorney Leslie Dubeck called Bragg’s agreement to testify a “voluntary cooperation.”
Dubeck added that the two sides would need to resolve “various scheduling conflicts” to set a date, likely after Trump’s sentencing in July. The Associated Press reported..
On May 30, Trump became the first president to be convicted of a criminal offense.
Jurors found him guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide hush money payments made to cover up damaging reports about him, including an alleged affair with porn star Stormy Daniels.
The 45th president has vowed to appeal the conviction. Trump is scheduled to be sentenced on July 11, just days before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where Trump is expected to be nominated for president in 2024.
Meanwhile, the Manhattan court where Trump was convicted is investigating social media posts in which a self-described “professional spy poster” claims to have learned of jurors’ voting intentions just before the verdict was handed down.
House Republicans have slammed Trump’s prosecution. He hinted at moves to cut funding. They can’t offer their resignations from the Justice Department or sue Attorney General Merrick Garland for contempt. They don’t seem to have the votes to do all that.
“We will continue to do our jobs without political influence,” Garland later countered, “and we will never back down from protecting our democracy.”
Rep. Jordan (R-Ohio), who also serves as chairman of the Select Subcommittee on Federal Weaponization, previously fought with Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis over documents related to the prosecution of Trump over allegations of election fraud in the county.
At present, the 10 charges against Trump in Fulton County are in limbo pending an appeal of whether Willis can continue to work on the case because of her affair with Nathan Wade, the former special prosecutor in the case.
The House Judiciary Committee did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment Sunday.
