Molly Crane-Newman | New York Daily News
NEW YORK — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and a member of the prosecution team that secured Donald Trump’s conviction for covering up a conspiracy to hide information from voters on Tuesday agreed to testify about the case before Congress next month.
“It undermines the rule of law to spread dangerous misinformation, baseless claims, and conspiracy theories following the jury’s return of a full-count felony conviction in People v. Trump,” a spokesperson for Bragg said in a statement to the New York Daily News.
“Nonetheless, we respect our government institutions and plan to appear voluntarily before the subcommittee after sentencing.”
Bragg and Assistant District Attorney Matthew Colangelo, who delivered the prosecution’s opening statement at the hush money trial, will voluntarily submit to questions from the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee on July 12, a day after Trump’s sentencing. Both have been the subject of relentless attacks from the right alleging their involvement in a Democrat-led plot to prevent the former president from regaining power.
A jury found Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records on May 30 following a seven-week trial in Manhattan Supreme Court, making him the first U.S president ever to be convicted of a crime. Trump has vowed to appeal and could face prison time when he returns to court. He is also accused of plotting to subvert the results of the 2020 election and hoarding and mishandling sensitive government documents in three other cases, in which he’s pleaded not guilty.
The Manhattan charges stemmed from Trump’s reimbursement to Michael Cohen for paying off porn star Stormy Daniels 11 days out from the 2016 election within a scheme to disguise sordid allegations about his past from the electorate that also included payoffs to former Playboy model Karen McDougal and a Trump Tower doorman.
In the latest effort of many by Trump-backing Republicans to bring into disrepute criminal accusations against their leading contender for president, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan requested Bragg and Colangelo testify before the subcommittee on the “Weaponization of the Federal Government,” which he chairs, the day after Trump’s conviction in May.
Trump’s allies have alleged Colangelo and Bragg’s crossover at the New York attorney general’s office and Colangelo’s former position at the Department of Justice is evidence of a conspiracy to take him down orchestrated by the White House. President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, was convicted of gun charges in a DOJ case carrying up to 25 years on Tuesday.
The House Judiciary Committee announced Tuesday that it would also hold a hearing this Thursday to review the DA’s “political prosecution of President Trump.”
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In a letter to the committee first reported by ABC News Tuesday, assistant Attorney General Carlos Uriarte said “extraordinary steps” taken to investigate claims by Trump’s allies in Congress found no back channel between the DOJ and the DA.
“(The) conspiracy theory that the recent jury verdict in New York state court was somehow controlled by the Department is not only false, it is irresponsible,” Uriarte wrote.
“Indeed, accusations of wrongdoing made without — and in fact contrary to — evidence undermine confidence in the justice system and have contributed to increased threats of violence and attacks on career law enforcement officials and prosecutors.”
Uriarte categorically denied any collaboration between the state-run DA’s office and the federal DOJ against Trump and said he believed that was clear to those levying allegations.
“The Department has no control over the District Attorney, just as the District Attorney has no control over the Department,” Uriarte wrote.
“The Committee knows this.”
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