(CNSNews.com) - "You'll hear victims tell tragic stories today," Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) told "Morning with Maria" on Monday.
Johnson is among the House Judiciary Committee members who is traveling to New York today for a field hearing on the lenient crime policies adopted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg:
"Well, we want to give the victims of crime in Manhattan an opportunity to share their stories," Johnson said. He said such a hearing is "squarely within" the Judiciary Committee's jurisdiction.
"You know, if a few radical politicians like Alvin Bragg can destroy a once-great American city, the people of this country need to understand it can happen in their hometown as well. And so this is something that I think many millions of Americans are deeply concerned about."
Johnson pointed to the "epidemic of violent crime" in New York City.
"And the reason is because of the soft-on-crime policies of this district attorney. From day one he issued this infamous now policy memo where he instructed his assistant prosecutors basically to let criminals roam free. So the logical and obvious effects of that are now being felt around the city.
"According to the NYPD's own statistics, we had major crimes rise by over 23 percentin just one year. This is completely foreseeable.
“But they do this in the name of things like restorative justice and equity, and hey, if you're listening at home and you hear your local prosecutor use those terms, you might need to elect a new one. It's going to lead to terrible consequences for everybody."
Johnson said that contrary to earlier reports, C-SPAN now plans to cover today's field hearing.
"But we had to force them to do that,” he said.
“It just goes to show you the bias that we're working against every single day. They don't want the American people to see what is happening. They don't want them to hear from these victims, but thankfully today we're going to give them that opportunity and some of these stories are just tragic.
“We have to turn this around.”
Johnson noted that “The New York Times” reported this past weekend that more than one-third of the shoplifting crimes in New York City last year involved just 327 people who, collectively, were arrested more than 6,000 times.
“They cannot say that they're not turning criminals loose, and of course, that leads to greater and greater and more and more violent crime, and that's what the people of the city are experiencing. We've got to get on top the of this,” Johnson said.
Johnson conceded that today's hearing won't change DA Bragg's lenient policies. "But we're going to put pressure on him and hopefully change the trajectory of what the residents of this city are having to face.
“Obviously, elections have consequences. There are elections of local DAs around the country, but people need to be aware that if they're advancing these kinds of ideas, these radical progressive ideologies, it's going to lead to terrible consequences.
"The only thing higher than the violent crime rate and the crime rate in New York City right now is the rate of U-Haul rentals and reservations of people moving out of this city, and they're going to red states, and places like Florida and Texas, Tennessee, where they can have a better quality of life.
“And they don't have to look over their shoulder just walking down the street or going to the drug store. So this has real-world consequences for people.”