Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office advised House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, that he should focus on high crime rates in his own state over the Trump ally's plan to hold a field hearing in Manhattan on violent crime in New York City.
Jordan, who launched an investigation into Bragg's investigation of former President Donald Trump ahead of last week's indictment, plans to head to New York City to interview unidentified witnesses at a recently announced hearing called "Victims of Violent Crime in Manhattan" on April 17, The New York Post reported. A source told the outlet that the hearing would examine "New York's rampant crime and victims of Alvin Bragg" for his alleged "failure to prosecute" perpetrators.
In response to the House GOP's field hearing plans, a spokesperson from Bragg's office called Jordan's move to come to the "safest big city in America" a "political stunt" that would fail to engage in "actual efforts to increase public safety, such as supporting national gun legislation and shutting down the iron pipeline."
"Don't be fooled," the statement said.
"The Manhattan D.A.'s Office welcomes public safety conversations. We have them every day with our local, state, and federal law enforcement partners," the statement added, pointing to New York Police Department data showing that shootings and homicides fell in the first quarter of 2023 "with progress in Manhattan helping to drive the overall citywide decrease."
As of April 2, 2023, the statement noted, nearly all major crime categories are lower in Manhattan now than they were last year: murders are down 14 percent, shootings are down 17 percent, burglaries are down 21 percent and robberies are down 8 percent.
"In D.A. Bragg's first year in office, New York City had one of the lowest murder rates of major cities in the United States – nearly three times lower than Columbus, Ohio," the statement said. "If Chairman Jordan truly cared about public safety, he could take a short drive to Columbus, Dayton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Akron, or Toledo in his home state, instead of using taxpayer dollars to travel hundreds of miles out of his way."
https://t.co/kQIlFMsC6X pic.twitter.com/YNq0I2bjas
— Alvin Bragg (@ManhattanDA) April 10, 2023
Several Democratic lawmakers also criticized Jordan for running political interference for Trump, who pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsification of business records."
Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., said Jordan is "not welcome in my district," echoing Bragg's office that the hearing is merely a "political stunt that is a further waste of taxpayer money to support Donald Trump's legal defense."
"Instead of focusing on improving the lives of the American people, Jim Jordan has decided to come to my district at the behest of Donald Trump to continue to weaponize Congress to obstruct an ongoing, non-federal criminal prosecution," Goldman said. "If Jordan truly cared about public safety, he'd be having a field hearing in Nashville, Tennessee or Louisville, Kentucky, where the most recent of the daily mass shootings have killed more innocent Americans."
