‘Unlawful incursion’: Manhattan district attorney fires back as Trump hush money probe goes quiet
New York: The Manhattan District Attorney who could soon make history by charging Donald Trump over alleged hush money to a porn star has hit back at Republicans who branded the inquiry a political witch-hunt and demanded he testify before Congress.
On Monday – after Trump posted a social media message suggesting he was about to be arrested over the case – senior Republicans from the House of Representatives wrote to District Attorney Alvin Bragg requesting documents and testimony, while criticising the grand jury probe into Trump as an “unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority”.
Demonstrators protest in support of former US President Donald Trump outside Trump Tower in New York. Credit:Bloomberg
However, in a rare public statement about the investigation, Bragg’s office fired back on Thursday, slamming the request as “an unlawful incursion into New York’s sovereignty” and calling out Trump’s false claim he was about to be taken into custody.
“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,” Bragg’s general counsel Leslie Dubeck wrote in her response to the Republican congressmen.
“Neither fact is a legitimate basis for congressional inquiry.”
Dubeck’s comments came as Americans continue to wait on a decision by the grand jury impanelled by Bragg to examine whether Trump committed any crimes relating to a $US130,000 payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.
Adult film actress Stormy Daniels.Credit:AP
The payment was made by Trump’s then-“fixer” Michael Cohen.
However, after taking office, Trump reimbursed Cohen, and prosecutors are now zeroing in on whether the former president and his company falsified internal records to hide the reimbursement.
Despite Trump’s claim that he would be arrested and indicted on Tuesday, the former president remains a free man and has spent much of the week at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida ahead of a planned rally on Saturday in Waco, Texas, where federal law enforcement killed 86 religious cult members after a siege three decades ago.
After being instructed to stay at home on Wednesday, the grand jury returned for a meeting on Thursday but was expected to delve into other cases on its books and not discuss the Trump probe, potentially delaying a vote on whether to indict the former president into next week.
In a statement released on Thursday afternoon, a defiant Trump suggested without evidence that the case against him was falling apart.
“Total disarray in the Manhattan DA’s Office,” he wrote. “Tremendous dissension and chaos because they have NO CASE, and many of the honest people in the Office know it, and want to do the right thing.”
Because grand jury investigations are shrouded in secrecy, it is not clear why the group did not meet on Wednesday as planned, or why the Trump inquiry may be further delayed.
However, the pause in proceedings comes after the Trump team brought in a fresh witness on Monday who spent the day debunking Cohen’s previous evidence. The witness was attorney Robert Costello, who has represented Trump allies like Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani, and was also a former adviser to Cohen himself.
The Republican letter demanding documents and testimony from Bragg was sent by Republican Congressmen Jim Jordan, James Comer and Bryan Steil, who represent some of the most powerful oversight committees in the US Congress.
Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan District Attorney.Credit:AP
They are among many Republicans who have rallied around Trump this week and hit out at Bragg, a Democrat, branding the hush-money case as yet another example of the “weaponisation” of federal agencies.
The investigation is one of several into the former president, but is also seen by legal experts as the weakest. The other probes include a Department of Justice investigation into the events of the January 6 Capitol attack; a Georgia-based investigation into election interference in that state; and another Justice Department investigation into the handling of classified documents.
Some Democrats have also warned that the Manhattan inquiry could backfire, while others are refusing to say where they stand.
New York-based Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, for instance, declined to say whether he has confidence in Bragg, simply stating “it’s premature to comment on what’s happening and we’ll have to wait and see what he does”.
West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin told reporters that an indictment could “basically have the reverse effect as what some people would think, not for the good”.
“There’s many reasons why Donald Trump should not be president again of the United States but you should not allow the court system to be viewed as a political pawn,” he said.
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