Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will testify before Congress on July 12, one day after former U.S. President Donald Trump receives his sentence in the hush money case. A source familiar with the matter confirmed this on Tuesday. Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee announced on X that they also secured testimony from Matthew Colangelo, a prosecutor on Bragg’s team and a former Justice Department official.
Last month, a Manhattan jury convicted Trump on charges brought by Bragg’s office. They found Trump guilty of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels for her silence before the 2016 election regarding a sexual encounter she claims they had, which Trump denies. Trump, who faces sentencing on July 11 before Justice Juan Merchan in New York state criminal court in Manhattan, vowed to appeal the decision.
The hearing, led by a Republican subcommittee, will allow Trump’s congressional allies to criticize the historic criminal trial of a U.S. president. They argue it is a politically motivated effort by Bragg, an elected Democrat, to interfere in the Nov. 5 election. Bragg, however, emphasized that maintaining accurate business records is a top priority in Manhattan, which he calls the business capital of the world.
Trump’s allies cited Colangelo’s role as evidence of President Joe Biden’s administration’s involvement in the prosecution, a claim Justice Department officials dismissed as baseless. A spokesperson for Bragg’s office stated, “It undermines the rule of law to spread dangerous misinformation,” and confirmed their intention to appear voluntarily before the subcommittee, respecting government institutions.
Local prosecutors like Bragg operate independently of the Justice Department. Assistant Attorney General Carlos Uriarte, in a letter to U.S. Representative Jim Jordan, the committee’s chair, reported that the Justice Department found no email correspondence between its officials and the Manhattan District Attorney’s office regarding the Trump case. “The conspiracy theory that the recent jury verdict in New York state court was somehow controlled by the Department is not only false, it is irresponsible,” Uriarte wrote in the letter seen by Reuters.
In testimony before the committee last week, Attorney General Merrick Garland denied allegations that he dispatched Colangelo to Bragg’s office, calling the suggestions false.
