DA Bragg won’t cooperate with House probe of Trump ‘hush money’ case
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on Thursday refused to cooperate with a rapidly expanding probe by House Republicans into the Stormy Daniels “hush money” case he’s pursuing against former President Donald Trump.
In a letter to three GOP committee chairmen, a top Bragg aide wrote that “the District Attorney is obliged by the federal and state constitutions to protect the independence of state law enforcement functions from federal interference.”
The Democratic DA’s general counsel, Leslie Dubeck, accused the Republicans — led by Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio — of acting on behalf of Trump, 76, when they sent a Monday letter demanding communications, documents, and testimony related to what they called Bragg’s “unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority.”
“The Letter only came after Donald Trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested the next day and his lawyers reportedly urged you to intervene,” Dubeck wrote. “Neither fact is a legitimate basis for [a] congressional inquiry.”
But Dubeck asked for a meeting “to understand whether the Committee has any legitimate legislative purpose in the requested materials.”
“While the DA’s Office will not allow a Congressional investigation to impede the exercise of New York’s sovereign police power, this Office will always treat a fellow government entity with due respect,” Dubeck added.
Jordan’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, but a Thursday morning tweet from the GOP side of the House Judiciary Committee said, “Alvin Bragg should focus on prosecuting actual criminals in New York City rather than harassing a political opponent in another state. Make Manhattan Safe Again!”
Bragg’s letter surfaced shortly after Jordan reached out to lawyers Mark Pomerantz and Carey Dunne, who led the DA’s Trump investigation before resigning last year after Bragg reportedly expressed doubts about moving forward with the case.
Jordan’s letters seek testimony and information from them dating to Jan. 1, 2017, that involves the DA’s Office, the Justice Department, and any other law enforcement agencies.
The letter to Pomerantz said the former prosecutor had spurred Bragg “into bringing charges” against Trump with his resignation letter, which was leaked to the New York Times, as well as his February memoir, in which he likened Trump to the late mob boss John Gotti.
“It now appears that your efforts to shame Bragg have worked as he is reportedly resurrecting a so-called ‘zombie’ case against President Trump using a tenuous and untested legal theory,” Jordan wrote.
Bragg’s office has been presenting evidence against Trump to a grand jury since late January in connection with the $130,000 Daniels received shortly before the 2016 election from then-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.
In 2018, Cohen was sentenced to three years in federal prison for a slew of crimes that included making an excessive campaign contribution to Trump by paying Daniels to keep quiet about her alleged 2006 affair with him.
Trump has denied cheating on his wife Melania Trump with Daniels.
On Wednesday, a letter surfaced from earlier in 2018, when Cohen told the Federal Election Commission that he “used his own personal funds to facilitate a payment of $130,000 to Ms. Stephanie Clifford,” aka Daniels.
As part of his guilty plea, Cohen turned on Trump and said the Trump Organization reimbursed him for the money.
Earlier Wednesday, Bragg unexpectedly postponed a scheduled session of the grand jury, with sources telling The Post that the DA had wanted a witness to rebut Monday’s testimony from lawyer and Trump ally Robert Costello.
But the planned witness was unavailable on Wednesday so the jurors were put on standby for Thursday.
The panel was set to reconvene at noon Thursday but will be hearing evidence in an unrelated case, court officials said, with reports saying it will return to the Trump case on Monday.
Prosecutors are reportedly trying to show that Trump falsified business records by writing off Cohen’s reimbursement for the Daniels payment as legal fees.
Although that would amount to a misdemeanor under state law, Bragg is reportedly pursuing a novel legal theory that would make it a felony on grounds that the records were falsified in connection with the violation of federal campaign finance rules.
