A leading Democratic official who is among Joe Biden’s closest political allies played a key role in installing Biden’s third-ranking Justice Department official as the lead prosecutor for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s “get Trump out” unit.
In a statement Tuesday, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said that when Matthew Colangelo sought to join Bragg’s “Get Trump Out” team, he named as his top recommendations then-Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez and Jeff Zients, now President Joe Biden’s chief of staff, both of whom Colangelo had worked for during his long career as a Democratic Party official.
Colangelo was Biden’s former acting deputy attorney general and one of the highest-ranking law enforcement officials in the country when he applied to become New York Attorney General Letitia James. His decision to leave one of the most coveted positions in the U.S. legal profession to work as an assistant prosecutor in Bragg’s office has led Republican lawmakers to question the political motivations behind the highly unusual job change – and who was behind it.
Jordan’s revelations confirmed long-held suspicions among Republican officials that Colangelo’s departure from the Justice Department to join Bragg’s staff was orchestrated by the Biden administration as a plot to eliminate Donald Trump, Biden’s chief political rival and opponent in the November general election.
“This has always been a political attack,” Jordan wrote in a post on X after revealing Colangelo’s application.
Get new documents @Justice Republican:
When Matthew Colangelo applied to work for Letitia James, guess who he listed as a reference?
-Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez
-Jeff Zients, White House Chief of Staff to President BidenIt was always a political attack. pic.twitter.com/YEmaU58ZJF
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) July 9, 2024
Colangelo played a key role on Bragg’s team, including delivering the opening statement against Trump in court, where a jury convicted him of 34 charges in May.
As Breitbart previously reported:
The former Justice Department lawyer played a key role in reinvigorating Bragg’s stalled investigation into Trump. arrival It took place in Manhattan on Dec. 5, 2022. Colangelo sparked new attention for Trump within Bragg’s office, which led the office to file the charges in April 2023.
Bragg “campaigned as the best candidate to follow the former president,” the paper said. The New York TimesShortly after taking office, Trump reportedly quietly began scaling back investigations into the former president after struggling to find crimes worthy of prosecution.
Mark Pomerantz, the special assistant on the Trump case, publicly resigned from Bragg’s office in February 2022, frustrated with Bragg’s reluctance to continue the case against Trump.
Colangelo’s appearance was a sign that Trump It is called Bragg is apparently concerned about whether charges will stand, but he says the case is a “zombie case.”
Breitbart News first reported the significance of Attorney General Colangelo’s resignation date: On the big day of Nov. 18, 2022, nine days after Biden pledged in his post-midterm press conference to pursue “constitutional fair efforts” to block Trump’s reelection, Colangelo resigned from the White House to join Bragg’s office, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed special counsel Jack Smith to reopen stalled Trump investigations in Washington, D.C., and Florida, and White House lawyers met for eight hours with Fulton County Prosecutor Nathan Wade.
The day after Breitbart’s accusation, he found himself in hot water. The Washington Post Published Editorial Garland has dismissed any criticism of the Justice Department as politically motivated conspiracy theories.
Despite Garland’s firing, Tuesday’s revelations are sure to intensify scrutiny in jurisdictions across the country of the Biden administration’s role in the prosecution of Bragg and its alleged weaponization of a political “legal war” against Trump.
“Colangelo’s nomination of the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee and Joe Biden’s current White House chief of staff as an endorser for the New York DA’s post is the latest evidence that Colangelo is one of the architects of the legal war against President Trump and that the Biden administration is behind its weaponization,” said Ken Blackwell, a former ambassador and president of the Conservative Action Project and the America First Institute’s Center for Election Integrity. “The American people should demand that the left stop seizing criminal prosecutorial power as a centerpiece of Biden’s attempt to interfere in the 2024 election.”
The document further undermined the White House and Biden campaign’s increasingly tenuous denials of any involvement, which Biden appeared to lift the veil at a May 31 press conference after Bragg convicted Trump.
“Donald Trump has called himself a political prisoner and is directly blaming you. What are your thoughts on that?” a reporter asked Biden as he walked away from the podium.
Biden paused awkwardly, turned to face reporters, stared silently for a long time, smiled meaningfully from ear to ear, then walked slowly out a side door.
Biden’s extraordinary response takes on even more significance in light of his disastrous performance in the June 27 debate, in which he was unable to complete sentences, finish thoughts or enunciate audible phrases, and repeatedly muddled past events and timelines, making embarrassing and politically charged gaffes that led many panicked Democrats and pundits to call for him to be replaced at the top of the candidate list.
Republicans and White House reporters are expected to increasingly press Biden on the issue, hoping for greater clarity about the role he and the White House played in Colangelo’s appointment and other legal efforts against Trump.
Garland, a veteran expert on the long tradition of disrupting congressional hearings, disputed his account of placing Colangelo in Bragg’s office during a June 4, 2024, House Judiciary Committee Justice Department oversight hearing.
“I did not deploy Matthew Colangelo,” Garland said, reiterating that “that is false.”
Asked how Colangelo ended up working for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, Garland said, “I believe he applied for a job there and got the job,” adding, “I had nothing to do with it.”
Garland’s Justice Department immediately after the hearing letter In a letter to House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the Biden administration continues to deny there was any coordination with Bragg’s office, but the letter inadvertently exposes the hollowness of Garland’s denial that the White House had any involvement in Colangelo’s relocation to Manhattan.
In the letter, Department of Justice officials assert:
… We conducted an extensive review of email communications between senior department officials, including all political appointees in that office, and the District Attorney’s Office regarding the investigation and prosecution of the former president between January 20, 2021 and the date of sentencing.
Breitbart reported:
The Justice Department letter said the search “also included the email account of Matthew Colangelo, a former Department of Justice official about whom the Committee has raised numerous unfounded questions.”
Not surprisingly, the Department of Justice’s limited review of official email correspondence found no evidence of any communication between the Department of Justice and Mr. Blagg’s office, and it is unlikely that any such communication occurred through official email, given its significance and potential illegality.
Nevertheless, the Department of Justice concluded that “the conspiracy theories are not only false, but also irresponsible.”
But by arguing that its search limited to official email correspondence proves that Colangelo and the Department never had any contact with Bragg, it follows that Colangelo had no contact with Bragg’s office before he began working there — an absurd claim that was quickly mocked.
The letter confirmed earlier Breitbart reporting about Colangelo’s departure date from the Justice Department.
Despite Bragg and Colangelo’s successful prosecution of Trump, their convictions appear in jeopardy.
While the US Supreme Court ruled in former President Donald Trump’s favour, finding that presidents have limited immunity from criminal prosecution for actions taken while in office, Trump has argued that some of the evidence in the case was obtained illegally.
Judge Juan Merchan deferred sentencing until those issues were resolved.
Other lawsuits arising before Nov. 18, 2022, appear to be in even more trouble after Biden made a surprising pledge to stop Trump through means other than the ballot box.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision, special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution in Washington against President Trump over the alleged January 6 election interference has likely failed or at least been crucially weakened.
Smith’s appointment itself could also be ruled unconstitutional in the Florida court under Judge Eileen Cannon, where Smith is suing Trump for possessing classified documents. In concurring in the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling, Justice Clarence Thomas questioned the legality of the appointment, paving the way for Cannon to find that Garland appointed Smith to a nonexistent position and with powers that Garland did not possess.
Wade is no longer involved in Fulton County after his affair with his boss, District Attorney Fani Willis, was revealed, and with so many other issues, it’s unlikely the case, even if it survives, will go to trial before the November election.
Bradley Jay is Capitol Hill correspondent for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter. translator.
