Panel To Examine 'Victims' Of Policies Of Alvin Bragg Who Took On Donald Trump

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has been in news for taking on former President Donald Trump. Now the House Judiciary Committee will hear from "victims" of the New York City prosecutor's policies during a hearing in New York next week.

It escalates a confrontation with Bragg over his criminal case against Trump, reported New York Post.

On April 17 morning, the "field hearing" will be held at the Jacob Javits Federal Building. It is near the prosecutor's Lower Manhattan office and the courthouse where Trump was recently arraigned on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

The hearing will examine "New York's rampant crime and victims" of the prosecutor, said a source.

Republicans have criticized him for being soft on conventional crime. They also slammed him for embracing a novel legal theory to bring the first-ever criminal case against a former President in the U.S.

It is not clear if the committee Chairman Jim Jordan (Republican-Ohio) will invite Bragg. A source said that the move hasn't been ruled out, and that "victims" of Bragg's "failure to prosecute" are expected to be witnesses. The expected witness list has not been shared so far.

The scheduled hearing was called a "political stunt" by a spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney's office according to The Hill.

The spokesperson wrote in a statement, "don't be fooled, the House Grand Old Party (GOP) is coming to the 'safest big city in America for a political stunt.'"

The statement further said that the hearing won't engage in "actual efforts to increase public safety." According to the spokesperson, it won't focus on topics like "supporting national gun legislation and shutting down the iron pipeline."

The statement further read that the Manhattan District Attorney's Office welcomes public safety conversations, and that they have them "every day with our local, state, and federal law enforcement partners."

Before Bragg pursued the indictment against Trump, who is the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, he downgraded the severity of charges against a lot of offenders.

The elected Democrat took office on Jan. 1, 2022, and since that day to late November, he downgraded 52% of felony cases to misdemeanors.

He was also slammed last year for charging bodega clerk Jose Alba with second-degree murder. Alba had fatally stabbed an ex-convict who had attacked him inside a store. This was followed by a national outcry and then Bragg's office dropped the case in July.

Trump was charged by the District Attorney for allegedly not accurately describing on internal company records hush money payments that were made before the 2016 Presidential election.