Trump's Indictment Limits Jim Jordan's Crusade Against Bragg

The congressional power that can be wielded against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg by House GOP leaders may be smaller now than it was last week, according to legal experts.

On Thursday, former President Donald Trump became the first president in American history to get indicted for his alleged involvement in a hush money payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels by his then-lawyer Michael Cohen ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, was allegedly paid $130,000 by Cohen to stay quiet about her alleged affair in 2006 with Trump. Cohen has previously said he was reimbursed by Trump, who denies having an affair with Daniels and any wrongdoing in the case.

"These Corrupt Democrat Prosecutors, all from poorly run and very dangerous Democrat run cities, are not going to choose the Republican Nominee, or the next President of the United States!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday in wake of the news. He has since reposted a string of Fox News clips in defense of himself.

On March 20, a letter was sent to Bragg by House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil "demanding communications, documents and testimony relating to Bragg's unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority and the potential indictment of former President Donald Trump."

In response, Bragg's office wrote a letter to the three GOP members on Friday, saying they "have chosen to collaborate with Mr. Trump's efforts to vilify and denigrate the integrity of elected state prosecutors and trial judges and made unfounded allegations that the Office's investigation."

Now that Trump has been indicted, legal experts say that the window for some sort of Republican retaliation via Congress has all but closed.

"There is little House Republicans can do to interfere," national security attorney Bradley Moss told Newsweek on Friday via email. "No court is going to uphold a subpoena demanding Bragg provide testimony on the details of a pending trial. Indeed, to do so would arguably be prejudicial to Mr. Trump."

"We are all spinning our wheels without having seen the indictment," Moss added, saying it's unknown to all how strong the case is and where it could lead.

GOP members' power has become "very limited" in the span of less than two weeks, legal analyst and attorney Norman Eisen told Newsweek on Friday via email.

"They may as they have threatened try to subpoena Bragg," Eisen said. "But because they have made so clear their improper purpose of interfering with a pending state prosecution to benefit of political ally, the courts are unlikely to force Bragg to testify about that. Constitutional principles of federalism sharply limit the GOP caucus here."

Jordan, an Ohio Republican, tweeted a one word response on Thursday to news of the indictment: "Outrageous."

Comer, a Kentucky Republican, told Fox & Friends on Friday morning that the indictment was "a political stunt" in the same vein as Democrats' impeachments of Trump when he was still president.

"One thing that we're concerned about in Washington, Congressman Jordan and myself, is that there's coordination being conducted here between [Attorney General] Merrick Garland, DOJ [Department of Justice] and all these different entities that are going after Donald Trump," the GOP lawmaker said.

He was referencing the multiple other federal investigations into Trump, including allegedly attempting to overturn Georgia's 2020 election results, whether he stoked the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, and his alleged mishandling of classified documents that were found by the FBI at his Mar-a-Lago Florida residence last August.

"This is a political witch hunt," Comer added. "They are doing anything they can in their narrative that would hurt Donald Trump."

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy earlier this month directed individuals like Jordan and other committee leaders to investigate whether federal funds "are being used to subvert our democracy by interfering in elections with politically motivated prosecutions."

McCarthy in a tweet on Thursday said that Bragg "has irreparably damaged our country in an attempt to interfere in our Presidential election."

"The American people will not tolerate this injustice, and the House of Representatives will hold Alvin Bragg and his unprecedented abuse of power to account," the California Republican wrote.

Representative Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican, had a more lukewarm response to the indictment, telling Axios that he trusts the U.S. legal system.

"There's checks and balances with a jury, judges and appeals," Bacon said on Thursday. "President Trump will be able to make his defense and we'll all see if this is a partisan prosecution or not."

Meanwhile, Eisen said the hush money case is "strong" and "important for our democracy."

"It's strong because Trump booked hush payments as legal fees," he said. "That's a slam dunk violation of New York's false financial books and records statute. And under the law, it's a felony because he did it to cover up other wrongdoings—the payments benefited his candidacy and so were campaign finance violations."

He added: "Like the Georgia case or the federal January 6 one, this case is also about our democracy because the 2016 election was so close. Another scandal after Access Hollywood could have changed the outcome."