Protesters who Republicans call “traitors” seek to interrogate crime victims in New York

Chaos erupted at the Manhattan Judiciary Committee crime hearing when protesters demanded entry and Chairman Jim Jordan had to tell the witness department to be quiet several times over bursts of applause during testimony.

Pro- and anti-Jordan protesters clashed with police trying to keep them out of the hearing room while the chairman scuttled Manhattan Attorney Alvin Bragg’s crime policy.

“In this country the judiciary is supposed to be blind, regardless of race, religion or creed. Here in Manhattan, however, the scales of justice are weighed down by politics,” said Jordan, R-Ohio, in his opening remarks.

Senior Member Jerry Nadler, himself a New Yorker, said in his opening remarks that the hearing was just a way for Republicans to bring former President Trump water.

“Let me be very clear, we are here for a reason and for a reason, only the Chairman is doing Donald Trump’s bidding,” the Democrat said.

He called Jordan’s political plays since Bragg’s indictment of Trump an “outrageous abuse of power” used to “perpetuate anti-Semitic and racist tropes” used by Trump against Bragg and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who also investigates Trump’s finances .

“It is – to use the favorite expression of the chairmen – an arming of the federal government.”

Before the hearing, Justice Democrats, along with Mayor Eric Adams, held a press conference to dismiss the narrative that New York City is unsafe.

“Welcome to the safest city in America,” the mayor said.

“We need to focus on how we deal with the gun violence that is choking America and let the prosecutor do the job that he does.”

Madeline Brame, chair of the Victims Rights Reform Council and herself the mother of a murder victim, told the committee that under Bragg, “all kinds of criminal elements are free to do what they want, when they want, how they want, who they want, without.” Consequences, without deterrence.’

She said federal funds should be withdrawn from the Manhattan DA’s office.

“They do absolutely nothing. And I propose pumping another, not another, cent of our federal tax dollars into these organizations until they can get some measurable results on the effectiveness of what they’re doing with our taxes to protect the public.

Brame’s son, Army veteran Hason Correa, was fatally stabbed in Harlem in 2018.

Correa, a 35-year-old married father of three, was allegedly beaten and stabbed to death by a group of attackers during an altercation outside an apartment building. Two of Correa’s attackers struck plea deals with Manhattan prosecutors, and one has already been paroled.

The man who stabbed Correa was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

“If you take a life, you do life,” Brame said, arguing that even the knifeman had not been adequately sentenced. “There should be no pleas for murder.”

“They treated us like garbage,” Brame said of Bragg’s office, adding the office did not tell her it would offer pleas to those involved in the murder.

Jose Alba also testified about the “horrific experience” he had when Bragg originally accused him of murder when he stabbed a man who attacked him at the bodega where he worked.

“I’m not here because I support the Republicans. I’m not here to criticize the Democrats. I just want to tell the public about the horrific experience I’ve had to go through because of crime in this city,” he said.

“Although the charges were ultimately dropped, they should not have been brought against me in the first place,” Alba said through his attorney. “I am now traumatized by the incident. I don’t work because I’m afraid for my life.”

Democrats brought in witnesses to point out that many crimes are less common in New York City than elsewhere in the country.

When asked by Nadler, Jim Kessler, vice president of Progressive Think Than Third Way, found that New York’s homicide rate is 18 percent below the national average.

“What we found when we looked at the data between 2000 and 2020 is the homicide rate in the red states as defined by the 25 states that voted for Donald Trump in 2020 … the homicide rate in the red states was higher than the homicide rate in the blue states, and all 21 of those years.’

Crime in New York City rose in 2020 and 2021 during the pandemic (before Bragg took office) after a decade-long downward trend. Major crime rose about 22 percent in 2022 – with Bragg taking office on the first day of that year.

New York recorded 438 homicides in 2022 – up from 319 the year before the 2019 pandemic.

From April 2022 to April 2023, the number of felonies remained about the same, although homicides, shootings and burglaries have decreased.

The city was far safer even in 2022 than it was during a dangerous period in the ’80s and ’90s — homicides and robberies were down 80 percent in 2022 compared to 1990, and rape was down 50 percent.

The Judiciary Committee, along with oversight and administration, has launched an all-out political war against Bragg over the indictment, most recently firing a subpoena on District Attorney Mark Pomerantz, who formerly worked in Bragg’s office and wrote a book on the need to prosecute Trump.

On Tuesday, Bragg sued Jordan in an extraordinary move to keep him from interfering in the criminal case against Trump.

The lawsuit accused Jordan of a “brazen and unconstitutional assault” on Trump’s law enforcement after the committee subpoenaed Bragg’s former associates, requested documents and scheduled an on-site hearing in New York.

Bragg’s attorneys are trying to prevent Jordan’s subpoena from Pomerantz.

Pomerantz tried to convince prosecutors to prosecute Trump – but gave up when Bragg dismissed his legal theories.

Bragg has refused to accommodate requests for documents from chairmen of the three committees regarding Bragg’s communications with the Justice Department. Bragg has described Republican interference as improper interference in a criminal process.

The charges against Trump were uncovered last week and included 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with a $130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels and “catch and kill” payments by the National Enquirer to Playboy model Karen McDougal and a bouncer who pretended to have a story about Trump’s alleged love child with a housekeeper.