Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, left, speaks during a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill, Feb. 9, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
After being sued in federal court, Rep. Jim Jordan tried to justify meddling in a local criminal investigation by spinning it as a matter of responsible accounting.
Jordan claimed that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg admitted to using “federal funds” to indict former President Donald Trump.
First, they indict a president for no crime.
Then, they sue to block congressional oversight when we ask questions about the federal funds they say they used to do it.
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) April 11, 2023
The only problem is: Bragg actually said the opposite, twice.
A New York grand jury indicted Donald Trump with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, alleging the former president repeatedly lied in order to cover up hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels and their reimbursements.
Whether Trump committed those crimes will be for a jury to decide — or a judge, if the former president prevails in his efforts to dismiss the indictment before trial.
On the second part of Jordan’s tweet, the Ohio Republican begins to veer away from the facts when he suggests “they say they used” federal money. It was Alvin Bragg’s office that indicted Trump, and his office repeatedly insisted that they haven’t used federal money.
“No expenses incurred relating to this matter have been paid from funds that the Office receives through federal grant programs,” Bragg’s general counsel Leslie B. Dubeck wrote in a letter dated March 31, 2023.
The DA’s office notes in that letter that its office gives the federal government more than it gets through forfeiture, estimating that it’s poured more than $1 billion into Uncle Sam’s coffers in the past 15 year years.
By stark contrast, the DA says, Bragg’s predecessor Cyrus Vance spent roughly $5,000 on expenses incurred relating to the investigation of Donald J. Trump or the Trump Organization between October 2019 and August 2021, according to a letter from the DA’s office.
Bragg became the DA in 2022, and Vance famously declined to prosecute Trump on hush-money allegations. In interviews, Vance indicated that was because the Department of Justice told his office to “stand down.” The DA’s office says that the relatively paltry $5,000 in federal money that Vance used mostly went toward the Supreme Court battle that bears his and the former president’s names: Vance v. Trump. Since Vance prevailed, that Supreme Court battle contributed to the prosecutions of the Trump Organization and its former chief operating officer Allen Weisselberg.
Bragg’s just-filed lawsuit against Jordan reiterates that there’s no connection between the federal funding and Trump’s indictment.
“Specifically, Ms. Dubeck clarified that ‘[n]o expenses incurred relating to this matter [including the investigation and prosecution of Mr. Trump] have been paid from funds that the Office received through federal grant programs,”” the complaint states.
The Manhattan DA’s office says it participated in three grant programs: the Stop Violence Against Women Act Program, for which it receives $50,000 a year; the Victim and Witness Assistance Grant Program, for which it receives $583,111.04 annually during its current grant period; and the Justice Assistance Grant, for which it received $204,730 for a period between Oct. 1, 2020, to Sept. 30, 2024, according to the letter.
Jordan’s press representative didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Read the letter here.
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