Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and one of the prosecutors on the panel in former President Donald Trump’s hush money criminal trial agreed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on July 12, the day after Trump’s sentencing, according to Bragg’s office.
Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, requested testimony from Bragg and Matthew Colangelo - a member of Bragg’s team who has drawn particular dislike from Trump - in May 31 letters he posted on X (formerly Twitter). Jordan said the hearing would focus on “weaponizing” the federal government, repeating Trump’s accusation without evidence that the Biden administration, not Bragg as New York state prosecutor, was behind the case.
The hearing may be drastic and will take place the day after Trump learns his criminal sentence. Jordan and Bragg will finally come face-to-face on a national television stage after more than a year of tension over Bragg’s impeachment against Trump.
On May 30, Trump was convicted by a unanimous jury of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a conspiracy to unlawfully interfere in the 2016 election through a scheme that involved hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.
“Spreading dangerous misinformation, baseless claims and conspiracy theories after the jury returns for a full criminal conviction in People v. Trump undermines the rule of law,” Bragg’s spokesman said in a statement to USA TODAY.
Prepare for surveys: See who’s running for president and compare their positions on key issues in our Voter Guide
“Nevertheless, we respect our government institutions and intend to voluntarily appear before the subcommittee following the verdict,” the statement read.
Trump accuses Biden without evidence
Trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence that Biden is behind him in New York state.
“DA Bragg fought everyone to get this ‘no crime’ case filed, but Crooked Joe Biden’s ‘thugs’ pushed him to go further, and push him hard,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on March 26.
In an attempt to paint a portrait of the conspiracy, Trump noted that Colangelo is a former U.S. Department of Justice official who later joined New York Attorney General Letitia James’s office, where he worked on a civil fraud case against Trump. This resulted in a $454 million judgment against the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. According to the release, Colangelo was appointed senior counsel in Bragg’s office in December 2022 to focus on housing and labor protections, as well as the office’s “most sensitive and high-profile official investigations.”
Biden’s “thugs” sent Colangelo to “directly supervise the district attorney, perhaps to ensure Bragg follows their illegal orders and orders,” Trump claimed without evidence.
Hearing may be irritable
In his letters to Bragg and Colangelo, which initially proposed a June trial date, Jordan stated that the trial “will examine efforts by state and local prosecutors to pursue politically motivated criminal prosecutions of federal officials, particularly the recent political impeachment of the president Donald Trump by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.”
Elsewhere, Jordan made it clear that he wanted to find evidence that would actually support Trump’s claims. In an April 30 press release, the committee said it was requesting documents from Attorney General Merrick Garland regarding the Justice Department’s “coordination” with Bragg and Bragg’s prosecution — although, like Trump, it provided no evidence of such coordination.
Garland already strongly opposed such claims in committee testimony last week.
“These repeated attacks on the Department of Justice are unprecedented and baseless,” Garland said. “I won’t be intimidated.”
On Tuesday, Deputy Attorney General Carlos Felipe Uriarte sent a letter to the committee saying the department had not found a single email correspondence between any senior official and Bragg’s office regarding any investigation or prosecution of Trump.
“This is not surprising,” Uriarte said, noting that the two pursuing entities are separate. “As the Attorney General stated at the hearing, the conspiracy theory that the recent jury verdict in New York state court was somehow controlled by the Department is not only false, but also irresponsible.”
In a lawsuit last filed in April 2023, Bragg accused Jordan of trying to “interfere with the state’s criminal process.” Bragg wanted to prevent Jordan from subpoenaing a former prosecutor in Bragg’s office, Mark Pomerantz, who resigned in 2022, while expressing criticism of the failure to bring an indictment against Trump for possible financial crimes at that time. The former president was impeached in Manhattan in March 2023. Ultimately, the commission deposed Pomerantz.
The July 12 hearing will be a showdown for Jordan, Bragg and Colangelo, a day after New York Judge Juan Merchan sentenced Trump. Theoretically, the former president could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison, but legal experts largely say that he faces a much lighter sentence for the crimes he is charged with and may avoid punishment altogether.
A spokesman for the House Judiciary Committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Contributions: Bart Jansen and Josh Meyer