Jim Jordan ‘Invites’ Bragg’s Top Lawyer to Testify Despite Being Warned He Has No Authority to Investigate DA’s Office

House Republican Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan has invited the Senior Counsel of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office to testify despite having no legitimate or constitutional authority to perform oversight of a county elected official’s actions.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is prosecuting Donald Trump for 34 felony violations. Jordan and the House GOP have been warned by Bragg to not interfere. Doing so, Bragg has said, could be illegal.

Legal experts also have repeatedly made clear Jordan, and his counterpart on the House Oversight Committee, Jim Comer, have no authority to investigate any state officials.

“The attempt by conservative House Republicans to intimidate Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is an abuse of power and antithetical to our federalist structure of government. Congress has no oversight authority over local district attorneys. Former President Donald Trump’s enablers are engaged in nothing but a shameful attempt to protect him from legal scrutiny,” wrote University of California, Berkeley School of Law dean and professor Erwin Chemerinsky, and Dennis Aftergut a former federal prosecutor who is currently of counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy just last week.

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But on Friday, despite having no legal authority to do so, Jordan sent a letter to Senior Counsel Matthew Colangelo informing him that “The Committee on the Judiciary is conducting oversight of the New York County District Attorney’s unprecedented indictment of a former President of the United States and current declared candidate for that office.”

After Bragg’s attorneys repeatedly warned him to stop interfering with an ongoing investigation. On Thursday Bragg spoke directly to Jordan via a statement that reads: “The House GOP continues to attempt to undermine an active investigation and ongoing New York criminal case with an unprecedented campaign of harassment and intimidation.”

“Repeated efforts to weaken state and local law enforcement actions are an abuse of power and will not deter us from our duty to uphold the law. These elected officials would better serve their constituents and the country, and fulfill their oath of office, by doing their jobs in Congress and not intruding on the sovereignty of the state of New York by interfering in an ongoing criminal matter in state court.”

Undeterred by the law, on Friday Jordan told Colangelo:

“According to news reports, District Attorney Alvin Bragg hired you in December 2022 to ‘jump-start’ his office’s investigation of President Trump, reportedly due to your ‘history of taking on Donald J. Trump and his family business.’ You had previously served in senior positions in the U.S. Department of Justice and the New York Attorney General’s Office, both of which had competing investigations related to President Trump. Given your history of working for law-enforcement entities that are pursuing President Trump and the public reporting surrounding your decision to work for the New York County District Attorney’s Office, we request your cooperation with our oversight in your personal capacity.”

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Jordan has repeatedly taken the stance that any prosecution of Trump is an attack on the ex-president. He also has tried to frame legal experts who have stated that the facts show Trump has committed crimes as being partisans who have a deep personal desire to prosecute Trump despite the facts.

His letter Friday to Colangelo continues that faulty logic, suggesting that because he has experience investigating Trump, Bragg should not have hired him to do so.

Jordan is requesting Colangelo hand over a massive trove of 18 months of documents, from June 22, 2021, to December 5, 2022, and present himself to testify by April 21.

You can read Jordan’s letter via the tweet below or at this link.

#BREAKING: @Jim_Jordan invites Matthew Colangelo, Senior Counsel to New York County District Attorney’s Office, to appear for a transcribed interview in furtherance of the Committee’s oversight of Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s unprecedented prosecutorial conduct. pic.twitter.com/nFViWPmNPJ

— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) April 7, 2023

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