Chaos erupted at the Judiciary Committee crime hearing in Manhattan, with protesters demanding to be allowed in and Speaker Jim Jordan having to repeatedly tell the witness section to shut up due to the explosions applause during testimony.
Pro and anti-Jordan protesters clashed with police trying to keep them out of the courtroom, while the president hit out at Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s criminal policies.
“In this country, justice is supposed to be blind regardless of race, religion or creed. However, here in Manhattan, the scales of justice are weighed down by politics,’ Jordan, R-Ohio, said in his opening statement.
Ranking member Jerry Nadler, a New Yorker himself, said in his opening statement that the hearing was just a way for Republicans to bring water to former President Trump.
Pro and anti-Jordan protesters clashed with police trying to keep them out of the courtroom as the president hit out at Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s criminal policies
Protesters demand to be admitted to the courtroom
Bragg arrives at his office with tight security as Jordan holds a hearing on his policy
“Let me be very clear, we are here for one reason and one reason only, the President is bidding on Donald Trump,” the Democrat said.
He called Jordan’s political plays since Bragg’s indictment of Trump an “outrageous abuse of power” used to “perpetuate anti-Semitic and racist tropes” launched by Trump against Bragg and New York Attorney General Letitia James. , which is also investigating Trump’s finances.
“It’s – to use the presidents’ favorite term – a militarization of the federal government.”
Before the hearing, the Judiciary Democrats, joined by Mayor Eric Adams, held a press conference to push back against the narrative that New York City is unsafe.
“Welcome to the safest big city in America,” the mayor said.
“We need to focus on how we deal with the gun violence that’s suffocating America, and let the DA do his job, which is the job he does.”
Madeline Brame, president of the Victims’ Rights Reform Council and mother of a homicide victim herself, told the committee that under Bragg, “all types of criminal elements are free to do whatever they want. when they want, how they want, who they want, without consequences, without deterrence.
She said federal funding should be withdrawn from the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
“They do absolutely nothing. And I propose that another not another penny of our federal taxes be injected into these organizations until they can produce measurable results of the effectiveness of what they are doing with our tax to protect the public.
Brame’s son, Army veteran Hason Correa, was fatally stabbed in Harlem in 2018.
Correa, 35, married with three children, was allegedly beaten and stabbed to death by a group of assailants during an altercation outside a building. Two of Correa’s attackers have reached a plea deal with Manhattan prosecutors and one has already been released on time.
“In this country, justice is supposed to be blind regardless of race, religion or creed. However, here in Manhattan, the scales of justice are weighed down by politics,’ Jordan, R-Ohio, said in his opening statement.
‘Jim Jordan engages in a lot of political theater in Washington. He should know better than to take his tired number to Broadway,’ rep Jerry Nadler said.
The man who stabbed Correa was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
“If you take life, you make life,” Brame said, saying even the dagger was not condemned appropriately. “There shouldn’t be any murder plea deals.”
“They treated us like garbage,” Brame said of Bragg’s office, adding that the office had not informed her that it would be offering plea deals to those involved in the murder.
Jose Alba also testified to the “horrible experience” he had when Bragg initially framed him for murder when he stabbed a man who attacked him at the bodega where he worked.
“I’m not here because I support Republicans. I’m not here because I want to criticize Democrats. I just want to tell the public about the horrible experience I had to go through because of crime in this city,” he said.
“Even though the charges were eventually dropped, they shouldn’t have been brought against me in the first place,” Alba said through her attorney. “I am now traumatized by the incident. I don’t work because I fear for my life.
Democrats called in witnesses to point out that many crimes are happening at a lower rate in New York than elsewhere in the country.
Jim Kessler, vice president of the progressive think tank Third Way, noted when asked by Nadler that New York’s murder rate was 18% lower than the national average.
‘What we found when we looked at data between 2000 and 2020 is that the murder rate in red states, as defined by the 25 states that voted for Donald Trump in 2020…the murder rate in red states, was higher than the murder rate in blue states, and all 21 of those years.
Crime in New York increased in 2020 and 2021 during the pandemic (before Bragg took office) after a decade of mostly declining trends. Major crimes have climbed around 22% in 2022 – with Bragg taking office on the first day of this year.
New York recorded 438 homicides in 2022, compared to 319 in 2019 before the pandemic.
From April 2022 to April 2023, major crimes remain about the same, although murders, shootings and burglaries have decreased.
The city was much safer even in 2022 than it was during a dangerous time in the 80s and 90s – murders and robberies are down 80% in 2022 from 1990, rapes are down 50 %.
The Judiciary Committee, along with Oversight and Administration, have launched an all-out political war against Bragg over the indictment, most recently issuing a subpoena to prosecutor Mark Pomerantz, who previously worked in Bragg’s office. Bragg and wrote a book about the need to prosecute Trump. .
Madeline Brame, above, will testify at the NYC Judiciary Committee hearing on Monday. Her son was fatally stabbed in 2018
Hason Correa, a US Army veteran, was fatally stabbed in Harlem in 2018 and two of his attackers got a plea deal with a light sentence 10993537
Alba shows DailyMail.com the injuries he suffered in the attack
On Tuesday, Bragg sued Jordan in an extraordinary move to try to stop him from interfering in the criminal case against Trump.
The lawsuit accused Jordan of a ‘brazen and unconstitutional attack’ on the prosecution of Trump after the committee subpoenaed the former Bragg employee, demanded documents and scheduled a court hearing in New York.
Bragg’s attorneys are seeking to prevent Jordan’s subpoena of Pomerantz.
Pomerantz tried to persuade the DA he should sue Trump – but quit when Bragg dismissed his legal theories.
Bragg refused to comply with requests for documents from the chairs of the three committees regarding Bragg’s communications with the Department of Justice. Bragg described the interference by Republicans as improper interference in a criminal case.
The charges against Trump came to light last week and included 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a silent $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels and “catch and kill” payments through the National Enquirer model to Playboy Karen McDougal and a doorman who claimed to have a story about Trump’s alleged love child with a housekeeper.