Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg broke his silence on the possible indictment and arrest of former president Donald Trump on Thursday, calling the demand from the House Judiciary Committee for information on the probe “unprecedented” and dismissing the panel’s efforts as illegitimate.
Bragg, who has been investigating Trump’s alleged use of campaign funds to pay hush money to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential run, was targeted by Republican members of the House committee on Monday, demanding information about the probe.
In a letter to Bragg, Ohio representative Jim Jordan and other GOP members accused the DA’s office of “investigating President Trump since at least 2018, looking for some legal theory on which to bring charges.” The missive charged that Bragg was planning to bring “a so-called zombie case” against Trump after federal prosecutors decided that only former Trump fixer Michael Cohen would face charges in the matter.
Cohen pleaded guilty in the scheme and was sentenced to three years in prison. He was released after serving about a year in the midst of the pandemic and completed the term under home confinement in November 2021.
The House letter, which followed a Saturday morning post on Truth Social in which Trump said he was going to be arrested on Tuesday, accused the DA’s office of reading an indictment “motivated by political calculations” and demanded that he turn over communications, documents and testimony relating to what it called the “unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority and the potential indictment of former President Donald Trump.”
Bragg slapped back at the GOP’s accusations, calling the letter “an unprecedented inquiry into a pending local prosecution,” Newsweek reported. “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. Neither fact is a legitimate basis for congressional inquiry.”
Bragg said that he has pledged that his office will “publicly state the conclusion of our investigation—whether we conduct our work without bringing charges, or move forward with an indictment.”
Trump continued to spout protest on Truth Social Thursday morning. In an all-caps post, he said, “Everybody knows I’m 100% innocent, including Bragg, but he doesn’t care. He is just carrying out the plans of the radical left lunatics. Our country is being destroyed as they tell us to be peaceful!”
A separate all-caps post from the former president asked, “Why won’t Bragg drop the case? Everybody says there is no crime here. I did nothing wrong!”
“It was all made up by a convicted nut job with zero credibility, who has been disputed by highly respected professionals at every turn,” the post said. “Bragg refuses to stop despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. He is a Soros backed animal who just doesn’t care about right or wrong no matter how many people are hurt. This is no legal system, this is the Gestapo, this is Russia and China, but worse. Disgraceful!”