House Republicans launched an investigation into a former top-ranking Department of Justice official who is now leading the prosecution in Donald Trump’s New York trial, according to documents recently obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
On Tuesday, the DCNF reported that House Judiciary Chairman Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) penned a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting documents and communications regarding prosecutor Matthew Colangelo.
A copy of the letter, obtained by the news outlet, explained that Colangelo was previously a senior DOJ official, which has “given the perception that the Justice Department is assisting in” New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s (D) “politicized prosecution” of former President Trump.
“The Committee on the Judiciary is conducting oversight of politically motivated prosecutions by state and local officials,” Jordan’s letter to Garland read. “Since last year, popularly elected prosecutors—who campaigned for office on the promise of prosecuting President Trump—engaged in an unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority: the indictment of a former President of the United States and current leading candidate for that office.”
House Republicans accused Bragg of “engag[ing] in one such politicized prosecution.”
Jordan claimed that, during Colangelo’s former employment with the DOJ, he “demonstrate[d] his obsession with investigating a person rather than prosecuting a crime.” He noted that Colangelo conducted investigations into Trump that prompted “a wave of state litigation against Trump administration policies,” according to an article from the Associated Press. The piece also noted that Colangelo, while working with the attorney general’s office, oversaw a lawsuit that ultimately led to the closure of Trump’s charitable foundation.
Jordan noted that a New York Times article from 2022 said Colangelo has “a history of taking on Donald J. Trump and his family business.” The NYT also wrote that Bragg’s decision to hire the former high-ranking DOJ official signaled that his office was seeking to “ramp up its investigation” into Trump.
“Bragg’s prosecution concerns federal subject matter identical to a matter that the Justice Department closed in 2018, raising concerns that a state-level prosecutor is seeking to relitigate an issue on which the federal government previously declined prosecution,” Jordan’s letter read. “In addition, Bragg’s prosecution relies heavily on the testimony of his star witness, Michael Cohen, a convicted felon with a demonstrable animus towards President Trump.”
“Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress in 2018,” Jordan continued. “In 2019, when he testified before the Democrat-led House Committee on Oversight and Reform in a hearing orchestrated by a longtime Democrat activist to aid their fruitless investigation into President Trump, Cohen lied again—six times.”
House Republicans accused the Biden administration’s DOJ of becoming “politicized and weaponized.”
The letter to Garland requested “all documents and communications” involving Colangelo or his employees that mention Trump. It also demanded documents related to Colangelo’s “hiring, employment, and termination” at the DOJ.
The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment from the New York Post.
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