DA Alvin Bragg and Rep. Jim Jordan (Photos via AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez and Alex Edelman/Getty Images)
After attempting to investigate the grand jury and subpoena a former top prosecutor, one of Donald Trump’s staunchest loyalists in the House of Representatives unveiled his latest attack on the former president’s indictment. On Monday, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio announced plans for the Judiciary Committee that he leads to hold a field hearing on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s home turf.
In 2017, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) notes that field hearings date back until at least the Civil War, when committees traveled to the front lines to observe conditions and “war preparedness.” Harry S. Truman’s storied World War II-era field hearings helped propel him to the presidency. The contemporary iterations of the tradition have served less lofty, public relations-driven goals.
In bullet points rattling off the purposes of field hearing, the CRS ends its list with “attract local, and sometimes national, media attention.” The stage is reportedly set for plenty of that in Jordan’s spectacle next week at the Javits Center, the palatial, glass conference center in lower Manhattan.
Sparked by Trump’s indictment, Jordan made clear in his announcement that he intends for his hearing to be nothing less than a referendum and roast of Bragg’s policies as a prosecutor.
“Alvin Bragg’s radical pro-crime, anti-victim policies have led to an increase in violent crime in New York City,” Jordan wrote in his announcement.
Politifact noted that the “total number of major felony offenses in 2022 were lower than in each of the other four available years.” Rape and felony assault increased, but those numbers remained far lower than the New York of the 1990s, fact-checkers added.
Alvin Bragg’s radical pro-crime, anti-victim policies have led to an increase in violent crime in New York City.
Next week, the Judiciary Committee will examine these policies during a field hearing in Manhattan.
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) April 10, 2023
Jordan’s press secretary Russell Dye didn’t immediately respond to Law&Crime’s voicemail requesting comment, and details about the hearing remain scarce outside the New York Post, the Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid that broke the first details about the proceedings. The Post’s source said that Jordan hasn’t “ruled out” inviting Bragg and will try to hear from “victims” of the DA’s “failure to prosecute.” No witness list is currently available, and Bragg’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Former federal prosecutor Mitchell Epner noted that field hearings are hardly a newfangled phenomenon.
“It’s unusual, but it’s not unheard of,” said Epner, a partner at Rottenberg Lipman Rich PC. “It bespeaks a desire to put more heat than light on the issue. And the truth is that every prosecutor that I know on both sides of the aisle believes in general that no good can come from having contemporaneous prosecution and examination of the prosecution.”
A field hearing doesn’t have to be a political stunt.
Once a clerk for late U.S. District Judge Herbert Maletz, Epner recalled his former boss had served as a staffer for the Truman Committee, which held field hearings at defense plants across the country in an effort to root out waste, inefficiency, and profiteering in U.S. war production. In one hearing, Epner said, the committee examined a failed Marine landing on a Japanese held-island during World War II. Thousands of Marines lost their lives in a matter of hours, and the committee called a general to talk about it.
As Epner recalls it, those somber proceedings led to uniquely powerful and resonant testimony.
“Somebody asked the general what that meant to him, and he said, ‘Two thousand dead Marines means 40,000 lost years of mother’s love,”” Epner recalled. “I heard that from Judge Maletz in 1995, and I can still hear it echoing in my ears today. So these sorts of oversight hearings, when properly done, can be extraordinarily impactful. I would be shocked if Jim Jordan and his colleagues are capable of contributing something like that.”
During the year of the CRS report, in 2017, field hearings were held in Fort Totten, Md., in order to examine the implementation of laws governing foster care for Native American children; Arlington National Cemetery, on plans for the historic site; and Frankenmuth, Mich., on a farm bill, according to the report. The Committees’ Congressional Handbook governs rules regarding expenses, which cover rental space, ravel security, official reporters, translation services, and other operational expenses.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
