House Democrats politicized a congressional Monday hearing on crime by mentioning former President Donald Trump at least 38 times, Republican House Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY) pointed out during the hearing in New York City.
“Democrats have politicized this hearing mentioning Donald Trump 38 times. That number for Republicans is zero,” Stefanik said. “We are focused on victims and making sure we support law and order in this country.”
Instead of speaking about solutions to the city’s soaring crime, Democrats attacked Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) for conducting oversight on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s lack of criminal prosecutions.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks at a press conference after the arraignment of former president Donald Trump in New York on Tuesday, April 4, 2023. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
“Bragg’s office has downgraded 52% of felonies and even when his office decides to prosecute a case they only have about a 50% conviction rate,” Jennifer Harrison, founder of Victims Rights NY, testified before the committee. “No one is safer as he promised as a result of his delusion and diversions.”
Despite the testimony, Democrats appeared to remain fixated on Trump. “We’re here today in lower Manhattan for one reason and one reason only: The chairman is doing the bidding for Donald Trump,” Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) said.
“It is an outrageous abuse of power,” Nadler said about Jordan’s oversight of Bragg, who charged Trump with 34 counts of wrongdoing. “It is, to use the chairman’s favorite term, a weaponization of the House Judiciary Committee.”
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) continued Nadler’s line of attack. Schiff, an unapologetic conspiracy theorist, claimed the hearing was meant to disrupt, interrupt, and interfere with the prosecution of Trump in a “vain attempt to intimidate or embarrass the prosecutorial authority [Bragg].”
“You’re the only ones talking about Donald Trump, we’re testifying about our families dying,” a heckler to the audience shouted at Schiff.
Crime is a major problem in the Big Apple. Overall crime soared 22 percent in New York City last year.
According to the New York City Domestic Violence Fatality Review Committee, “from 2010 through 2021, in New York City there were 730 domestic violence homicide incidents involving 783 victims; these victims accounted for 16.7% of all homicides (783 of 4,687) that occurred in New York City.”
WATCH: Jordan Torches Bragg for Caring “More About Perpetrators Than Victims” at NYC Crime Hearing:
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.