House Judiciary Committee members on both sides of the aisle are expected to include their New York colleagues for a hearing Monday in Manhattan focused on soaring crime in the city, against a backdrop of scrutinizing Democratic District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his prosecution of former President Donald Trump.
According to city statistics released in February, over 170,000 felony crimes were reported in New York City last year, the most since 2006, when the New York Police Department began making these numbers publicly available.
The committee, led by Chairman Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, is expected to include GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik and Democratic Rep. Daniel S. Goldman, who represents the 10th Congressional Manhattan-Brooklyn District, where the hearing will be. Neither lawmaker currently serves on the Judiciary Committee.
Mr. Goldman, a multimillionaire heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, was lead counsel in Mr. Trump’s first impeachment. He’s expected to run interference for Mr. Bragg as GOP lawmakers go after the prosecutor for refusing to prosecute most violent crimes in the borough of Manhattan, but recently indicted Mr. Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
Mr. Goldman voted against a resolution of disapproval signed by President Biden to block the D.C. crime bill, which critics said was weak on crime. In 2022, he supported increasing social workers and mental health experts to respond to domestic violence disputes, rather than having police intervene.
Mr. Goldman endorsed Mr. Bragg in 2021 for the district attorney’s job, contributed $7,500 to his campaign, and hosted a fundraiser for the future Manhattan DA at his multimillion-dollar Tribeca residence.
The New York Democrat denied in a recent interview with City and State NY that the fundraiser was ever about “getting Trump.”
“I worked with Alvin in the [U.S. Attorney’s Office for the] Southern District of New York and have been friends with him for 15 years,” he said. “And I think Alvin was very careful to talk about his past experience related to Donald Trump, but making no promises, no assertions about what he would do, in part because he had no idea what the investigation had uncovered, what the evidence was.”
Ms. Stefanik represents a district that is several hours north of New York City. Still, she is the only New York Republican from GOP leadership who will participate in the hearing.
“I look forward to holding Democrats accountable for their failure to prosecute crimes and instead engage in illegal political witch-hunts against their political opponents,” Ms. Stefanik said in a statement.
The top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who is expected at the hearing, derided the hearing from the beginning and accused GOP lawmakers of bullying Mr. Bragg.
“Using a congressional committee to bully a state DA sounds like … the weaponization of the federal government,” he said when the panel’s location and subject was announced.
The hearing will take place on Monday at 10 a.m. at the Javits Federal Building, where the panel will hear witness testimony from Jose Alba, a former Manhattan bodega clerk who was charged with second-degree murder by Mr. Bragg after Mr. Alba stabbed a man in self-defense. The charges were later dropped.
The panel will also hear from Madeline Brame, chairwoman of the Victims Rights Reform Council and mother of a homicide victim, and Jennifer Harrison, founder of Victims Rights NY.
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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