Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said Tuesday that he plans to testify before Congress on July 12, the day after former President Donald Trump is found guilty of hush money.
Bragg and prosecutor Matthew Colangelo, a former senior Justice Department official appointed in 2022 to lead the Trump investigation, are scheduled to appear before a House subcommittee that is investigating what it calls the “weaponization” of the federal government.
Bragg and Colangelo are likely to face intense questioning from Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the subcommittee chairman and a strong ally of Trump, who has repeated Trump’s claims that the Manhattan attack was politically motivated and has called the case a “camouflage trial.”
Other Trump allies expected to grill prosecutors include Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who has repeated Trump’s assertion that the state trial was orchestrated by President Biden, even though Biden is a federal employee who does not oversee the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
“Spreading dangerous misinformation, unfounded allegations and conspiracy theories following a felony conviction by a jury in People v. Trump undermines the rule of law,” a spokesperson for the Manhattan district attorney’s office said in a statement. “That said, we respect the institution of government and plan to voluntarily appear before the subcommittee after the verdict.”
Trump claimed in March that Colangelo, who investigated Trump cases alongside Democrat Bragg earlier in their careers in the New York Attorney General’s office, was recruited into the case as part of a “Biden-led” conspiracy.
“This is all being driven by Biden. [sic]”I mean, Biden and his minions, because I don’t know if he knows he’s alive. And it’s a shame what’s happening to our country,” Trump told reporters at the time.
A 12-person Manhattan jury last month found Trump, 77, guilty of felony counts of falsifying business records for concealing a 2016 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels to prevent her from leaking an embarrassing story about having sex with Trump a decade earlier.
The shock verdict in an unprecedented criminal prosecution against the former president came after a seven-week trial in which Daniels gave lewd testimony and Trump’s former “fixer” Michael Cohen took the stand to testify against her.
Legal experts told The Washington Post that Trump could be convicted of 34 felony counts and face up to four years in prison, but could also be subject to probation and community service.
