Quiet in the peanut gallery!
Audience members at the House Judiciary Committee’s field hearing kept giggling at Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) on Monday after the panel’s ranking member accused Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) of going after Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg for political reasons rather than concern about the victims of violent crime.
“Let me be very clear: We are here today in Lower Manhattan for one reason and one reason only — the chairman is doing the bidding of Donald Trump,” Nadler said in his opening statement.
Some attendees burst into laughter at the remark, according to video footage of the hearing and two House GOP aides who were present.
“They are using the public offices and the resources of this committee to protect their political patron, Donald Trump,” Nadler went on. “It is an outrageous abuse of power. It is, to use the chairman’s favorite term, a weaponization of the House Judiciary Committee.”
That comment drew more laughter, forcing Jordan to step in.
“The gallery should refrain from commenting. Let the gentleman from New York finish his statement,” he said.
The “Victims of Violent Crime in Manhattan” hearing took place 13 days after the 76-year-old former president was arraigned on 34 felony counts of business fraud for allegedly altering records detailing “hush money” payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal before the 2016 election.
Nadler cited declining homicide rates and decreased shootings in the Big Apple in 2022 to claim Judiciary Committee Republicans were not concerned with rising crime — though major crimes like robbery and burglary were up 22% last year.
“It is shameful that the Republicans of this committee would use the pretext of violent crime as an excuse to play tourist in New York and bully the district attorney,” Nadler said.
“You can pretend that you are not here on Donald Trump’s behalf, but you cannot stop the New York criminal justice system from running its course. And you will not intimidate New Yorkers with your brief visit to this city.”
A little more than 300 offenders accounted for 30% of 22,000 shoplifting arrests that occurred in New York City in 2022, according to the NYPD.
A father of a victim of a brutal anti-Semitic assault also went after Nadler on Monday, telling the Jewish Democrat he was “disappointed” that his office failed to acknowledge the incident.
“You have Jewish roots here, and behavior like this enables DA Bragg to just do whatever he wants to do,” said Barry Borgen, whose 30-year-old son Joseph was beaten, bruised and given a concussion while wearing a yarmulke in Times Square in May 2021.
Other witnesses denied that their testimony was politically motivated.
“I am not here because I’m supporting Republicans. I am not here because I want to criticize the Democrats. I just want to tell the public about the horrible experience I had to go through because of crime in this city,” said an attorney who spoke for Jose Alba, a bodega worker who was charged by Bragg with murder last year after fatally stabbing a man in self-defense during a confrontation in his store.
Some protesters also gathered outside the sixth floor hearing room in the Javits Federal Building on Monday, chanting “Indict Jim Jordan!” and calling the Judiciary chairman a “traitor” and “liar” in signs they carried.
Nadler and Jordan butted heads and breached committee decorum themselves during a July 2020 hearing with former Attorney General Bill Barr — with each representative accusing the other of “rudeness.”