Washington (CNN) The chairmen of the three House committees sent a letter Saturday to the Manhattan District Attorney leading the Donald Trump investigation, stepping up efforts to interfere with the earlier financial investigation into possible criminal charges against the former president.
A letter from the chairmen of the House Judiciary, Oversight, and Administration Committees to Manhattan Attorney General Alvin Bragg retracted his presence in a written interview with their agencies and argued that they now feel obligated to consider whether Congress should take legislative action on three separate cases “to protect former presidents and and/or current politically motivated lawsuits by state and local authorities.” Administrators.
The letter — written by Republicans Jim Jordan, James Comer and Brian Steele — comes after Bragg was called first earlier this week to testify before their committees, slamming his investigation into Trump as “continuing an unprecedented abuse of power.”
Bragg is investigating Trump’s alleged role in a scheme to pay adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election to keep quiet about an alleged affair with Trump a decade earlier. Trump denied having an affair with Daniels.
He was the general counsel for Prague’s response on Thursday, and he told the House committee leaders that they lacked a “legitimate basis for a congressional investigation,” noting that their requests for information “came only after Donald Trump created the false expectation that he would be arrested the next day. And his lawyers were urging you. to intervene.”
In Saturday’s letter, the chiefs alleged that Bragg did not contest “the central allegations in question” — that his office was under “political pressure from left-wing activists and former prosecutors” and “planned to use an alleged federal campaign fund violation, ex-prosecutors.” . Federal prosecutors, in an effort to extend the statute of limitations for another misdemeanor, have overturned the conviction of a former US president for the first time in history.
They argued that the potential indictment of a former president and 2024 presidential candidate “implies important federal interests, especially in a jurisdiction where trial judges are elected by popular vote.”
Going further than they’ve done before — Jordan, Kummer, and Steele write that they could choose to consider three areas of legislation, including expanding the “federal election law’s pre-emption clause,” adding that such action could have the effect of limiting the powers of the prosecution. better federal and local officials on the ground and impede selective or politicized enforcement by state and local attorneys general of prosecution restrictions. campaign finance related to federal elections.
A second bill they could consider would relate to the link between federal funds and improving public safety fund measures — a measure they say is prompted by allegations that the Manhattan DA is using federal public safety funds in its investigation of Trump.
They said they might also consider reforming the powers of private attorneys and better defining their relationship with other prosecuting agencies, arguing that the circumstances of Trump’s investigation “stem in part from the attorney’s investigation.”
CNN’s Jeremy Herb, Kara Scannell and Paula Reid contributed to this report.
