WASHINGTON — The Republican defense of former President Donald Trump has taken a surprising turn: They are threatening to defund the prosecutor.
For years, Trump and other Republican candidates have ridiculed progressive Democrats for promoting a «defund the police» movement that seeks to divert funds from traditional law enforcement toward community services aimed at reducing crime.
The slogan of the progressives proved to be an effective enough weapon for the Republicans against the Democrats that Joe Biden felt compelled during his 2020 campaign to call for additional federal spending for the police.
But now, as Trump anticipates prosecution on allegations that he illegally paid money to silence adult film star Stormy Daniels to promote his successful 2016 run for president, House Republicans are threatening federal funding for the office. from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. More broadly, the GOP seeks to undermine prosecutors whose campaigns were supported by liberal billionaire George Soros.
«Your decision to pursue such a politically motivated prosecution, while embracing progressive criminal justice policies that allow career ‘criminals’ [to] run[ ] the streets of Manhattan, requires congressional scrutiny of how local law enforcement agencies implement public safety funds appropriated by Congress,» Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, James Comer, R-Ky., and Bryan Steil, R – Wis., wrote to Bragg on Monday.
The three lawmakers, the chairs of the Judiciary, Oversight and Administration committees, respectively, invited Bragg to testify before them and demanded that he turn over «all communications» between his office and other local and federal law enforcement agencies. They also requested all communications from his office related to the use of federal money.
His letter follows President Kevin McCarthy’s weekend tweet promising to «investigate whether federal funds are being used to subvert our democracy by interfering in elections with politically motivated prosecutions.»
Trump is the favorite for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
The Department of Justice provides money to state and local prosecutors through a variety of scholarship programs — including those designed to combat violent crime, hate crime, and sexual assault — but represent a small part of the Manhattan district attorney’s budget.
Still, Michael Steele, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee who has become a vocal critic of his party, said Republican lawmakers would be outraged if Democrats wanted to investigate federal funding for a local prosecutor based on an ongoing case.
«Now you have the Republicans talking about ‘We want to take your money,'» he said. «If any Democrat behaved this way, these same people would be losing the f—. It’s that simple.»
In an interview on Fox News Monday, Jordan dodged a question about what Congress would do about federal funding for the prosecutor’s office.
“That is a concern for us,” he said, turning to his interest in obtaining records of any of Bragg’s communications with other law enforcement agencies.
But in another twist, it is political money, not federal cash, that has dominated much of the GOP discussion of the possible impeachment.
Since Trump announced on Saturday, without apparent evidence, that he would likely be indicted on Tuesday, he and other Republicans have targeted support Soros-backed entities have awarded progressive candidates for elected prosecutor posts.
“I have no interest in getting involved in a circus fabricated by some Soros-DA,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is Trump’s main rival for the GOP presidential nomination, said in his first public comments since Trump He postulated that he would be accused. this week.
Trump and his allies were outraged Monday by what they saw as a weak defense of the former president in which DeSantis also repeated the allegations against him. But the momentary repetition of Trump’s own attacks on Soros and Bragg, and interestingly enough, put the two leading Republican presidential candidates in the position of sharing a common sworn enemy.
The comfortable political terrain for all Republicans is to attack the liberals, the Democrats and the big-city prosecutors they choose. That helps explain the House GOP’s insistence on investigating federal funds flowing to the Manhattan district attorney. The other obvious reason is that it gives them an entry point to search for testimony and records from a local prosecutor, since Congress oversees federal money. It is perhaps notable that House Appropriations Chairwoman Kay Granger, a Texas Republican whose panel is in charge of spending, did not sign the letter.
DeSantis and other Republicans have long criticized Soros for endorsing prosecutors who promote non-enforcement policies on certain crimes, in part because the same philosophy is at the heart of the «defund the police» movement. The billionaire’s name appears eight times in DeSantis’ recent book.
In one passage, he contrasts the lawlessness wishes of some Soros-backed officials in Florida with «a prosecutor’s duty to prosecute.»
A McCarthy aide provided a copy of the House Republicans’ «Engage to America» agenda for 2022 in response to a question about the difference between defunding the police and defunding a prosecutor. In it, Republicans vow to «oppose all efforts to defund the police» and «crack down on prosecutors who refuse to prosecute crime.»
But turning the argument around, Republicans are now pushing for a prosecutor to avoid impeaching Trump.
Steele said the party has become entangled in a shackle in trying to defend its former and possible future leader.
«Here’s the trick,» he said. “Donald Trump wouldn’t have had to pay $130,000 to a porn star if he wasn’t having an affair with her while her wife was giving birth to her child. So, chew on that Republican Party.»
Trump has denied having an affair with Daniels. Their youngest child was born in March 2006, a few months before Daniels said she had sex with Trump.