His NYC stunt was an attempt to interfere in a criminal investigation. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

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There’s an old saying in the law: When the facts are on your side, pound the facts. When the law is on your side, pound the law. When neither is on your side, pound the table.

Yesterday the House Judiciary Committee pounded the table. It held a field hearing in New York City to discuss crime rates. It was a circus, of course (no elephant puns, I promise). But it was deadly serious, too — an attempt to mess with the district attorney who brought felony charges against former President Donald Trump. Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) isn’t trying to protect against rising crime — he’s seeking to protect someone accused of committing multiple crimes.

Victims of crime testified. To be clear: we should respect those who have lost loved ones to violence. My own family lost a close friend and colleague to gun violence nearly a decade ago, and the pain lives on. But the most effective way to help victims of crime is to have fewer victims — to keep crime low.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg won office in 2021 vowing that “public safety and fairness go together.” In fact, after rising during the first months of the pandemic before he took office, violent crime is dropping in Manhattan. Since he started the job in January 2022, shootings in Manhattan have declined by double digits. Manhattan homicides are down by 15 percent, falling faster than the homicide counts in the five boroughs of New York as a whole.

Bragg has taken grief for some of his reform policies, and the New York Post and political foes curse his name regularly. Trump called him an “animal,” a not-exactly-subtle racist taunt against the first Black district attorney in that legendary office. But as my colleagues (and former New York prosecutors) L.B. Eisen and Ames Grawert point out

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in the New York Daily News, Manhattan has the sixth-lowest murder rate among the 50 largest municipalities in the United States. The murder rate in Columbus, Ohio — a much shorter trip from Jordan’s district than New York City — is three times higher than that of Gotham. In 2020, the property crime rate in the city of Pensacola, Florida, within the district of Jordan’s fellow Trump enthusiast Rep. Matt Gaetz (R), was two times higher than New York’s. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s hometown of Bakersfield, California, had double the murder rate of New York in 2020.

If the hearing was not an earnest attempt to plumb the causes of crime in the nation’s safest big city, what was it?

Jordan’s stunt is part of a broader move to meddle in Bragg’s investigation. Even before the indictment, House Republicans threatened to withhold federal funding and subpoena confidential records from Bragg. The lawmakers have demanded a series of internal documents that Congress should not access during a pending criminal prosecution.

This intrusion departs from any recognizable form of congressional oversight, as my colleague Martha Kinsella explains

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. According to Supreme Court jurisprudence, a congressional subpoena must have a valid federal legislative purpose that is adequately identified. Personal aggrandizement is not a valid legislative purpose. (This is a principle established during the dark days of the House Un-American Activities Committee and Sen. Joe McCarthy, when demagogues commandeered Congress’s investigative machinery to punish political opponents and cow dissidents.) Above all, attempts to usurp the appropriate role of law enforcement violate the separation of powers. When Congress meddles in prosecutions at the state or local level, it also violates principles of federalism.

In any case, this stunt will soon be forgotten. The civil trial for alleged rape brought by E. Jean Carroll against Trump starts soon. A grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, will likely bring charges in May for Trump’s effort to undo the results of the 2020 election. Even the classified document probe seems to be heating up, with Trump’s lawyer recusing himself from the case, a sign he may be called as a witness in a criminal trial of his client.

Out of office and stripped of his claims of immunity, Trump is an ordinary citizen. He will have to face the legal system in New York.

Based on all this, Donald Trump is a one-man crime wave. Perhaps the next hearing can examine what happens if he is held to account.





Election Denial Isn’t Dead Yet

The election denial movement faced a setback after midterm voters in battleground states resoundingly rejected candidates who spread lies about our elections in 2022. Nevertheless, the antidemocratic movement is far from fading out. “Ensuring the future of fair and free elections requires national baseline standards, a robust restoration of the Voting Rights Act, and harnessing the energy of our multiracial movement once again to say: don’t mess with our democracy,” Kendall Karson writes. Read more

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Countering Big Money in Politics

More than a decade after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision opened the floodgates to big money in politics, a growing number of cities and states are seeking ways to push back. Public financing of campaigns has emerged as the most powerful reform available to counter the outsize influence of megadonors and give everyday citizens a bigger say in politics. Chisun Lee notes that, with more public financing programs set to launch this year, the increasing momentum for change reflects “Americans’ broader desire to fix a campaign finance status quo that undermines their voices and their votes.” READ MORE

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What to Watch For in Wisconsin

After Wisconsin’s high-profile judicial race, it remains to be seen how the conservative state legislature will respond to the state supreme court’s new liberal majority. Some lawmakers are already threatening to impeach the court’s newly elected liberal justice, which would depart from long-standing norms of judicial independence. The legislature might also follow the national trend of pushing bills that target the court’s power or autonomy. As Alicia Bannon writes for State Court Report, “How strongly these judicial independence values hold will be an important test as state courts become increasingly high profile.” Read more

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An Overdue Reckoning with Remote Court

Court systems embraced virtual proceedings during the Covid-19 pandemic. Since then, state courts have largely avoided answering novel constitutional questions about how to reconcile remote proceedings with a number of constitutional rights, including a defendant’s rights to confront witnesses and receive the effective assistance of counsel. While this cautious approach may have been prudent in the pandemic’s early days, Michael Milov-Cordoba writes in State Court Report that “three years on, however, state courts should address how the state constitutional rights of criminal defendants fare in a virtual world.” READ MORE

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Coming Up

VIRTUAL EVENT — Disinformation Nation: How Partisan Politicians Distort History

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Thursday, April 20, 6–7 p.m. ET



Misinformation abounds on social media and cable news. A new book points out that this applies not only to current events but to our nation’s history as well. Join us for a live virtual conversation with the editors of the book, Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past

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, and some of the writers featured in it. RSVP today

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VIRTUAL EVENT — Making Congress Work in a Divided Nation

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Wednesday, April 26, 1–2 p.m. ET



What can we learn about bipartisan collaboration from the committee system? What practical changes would make Congress more representative of the country as a whole? The Brennan Center is pleased to announce the premiere of a previously recorded conversation about making Congress more effective, featuring former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), political correspondent Daniel Strauss, and Dr. Maya Kornberg, Brennan Center Elections and Government Program research fellow and author of Inside Congressional Committees: Function and Dysfunction in the Legislative Process

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, moderated by Precision Strategies partner Mike Spahn. This premiere will include a live text chat Q&A with Kornberg. RSVP today

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Want to keep up with Brennan Center Live events? Subscribe to the events newsletter.

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News

Ames Grawert on crime rates in Florida // VOX

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Lawrence Norden on the defamation suit by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News // BLOOMBERG

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Michael Waldman on the legal battle over abortion drug mifepristone // ETHNIC MEDIA SERVICES

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Daniel Weiner on reform of the Electoral Count Act // VILLAGE VOICE

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