BREAKING: Republicans Take Major Action to Defund Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg Following Trump Indictment
On Thursday, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) took bold action by filing two pieces of legislation that would hold Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg accountable for the indictment of Donald Trump with the use of federal funds.
As reported by The Daily Caller, the two bills, called the “Accountability for Lawless Violence In Our Neighborhoods Act” or ALVIN Act and the “No Federal Funds for Political Prosecutions Act,” would force the DA’s office to pay back its federal funds and bar additional funding from being directed to the office.
“I just introduced legislation to hold DA Alvin Bragg accountable for failing to address lawlessness and for utilizing federal resources in the political prosecution of President Trump,” Biggs wrote about the legislation on Twitter. “I am defunding his Manhattan Office and requiring it to repay us.”
I just introduced legislation to hold DA Alvin Bragg accountable for failing to address lawlessness and for utilizing federal resources in the political prosecution of President Trump.
I am defunding his Manhattan Office and requiring it to repay us.https://t.co/VXGdDOOfuU
— Rep Andy Biggs (@RepAndyBiggsAZ) April 13, 2023
“My legislation holds the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, led by District Attorney Alvin Bragg, accountable for its failure to address lawlessness in the region and for utilizing federal resources in the political persecution of former U.S. President Donald J. Trump,” Biggs said in a statement. “I am defunding the Manhattan Office and requiring it to repay us.”
— Rep Andy Biggs (@RepAndyBiggsAZ) April 13, 2023
As Bragg continues to go after the 45th president, crime rates within the city he is supposed to serve have skyrocketed.
As reported by The New York Post earlier this year, 172,852 felony crimes took place in 2022, making it the highest level of such crime in the city since at least 2006. In comparison, the number of felony crimes in the city in 2021 was 143,522, an increase of over 20 percent year-over-year. 2006, when the data was first recorded, saw 171,318 felony crimes.
Making matters worse is the hundreds of police officers who are resigning from NYPD in recent years.
According to a new report from The New York Post, a staggering 239 officers left the force in January and February, marking a 36 percent spike from the previous year’s numbers. Compared to 2021, resignations have seen a shocking 117 percent increase from the 110 officers who left the force that year.
The staggering loss of personnel is the worst in over 15 years when 250 officers left the force within the two first months of the year back in 2007. However, back then they weren’t leaving due to high crime, it was instead a contract dispute with city officials.
“District Attorney Alvin Bragg ran on a campaign pledge to indict President Trump,” Biggs said in a statement to The Daily Caller. “Bragg took the unprecedented action of converting alleged minor business misdemeanors to 34 individual felonies in an attempt to put President Trump behind bars and humiliate him and his supporters.”
“This weaponized prosecutor’s office has spent thousands of federal taxpayer dollars to subsidize this political indictment and is demanding millions more in federal grants,” he continued. “It’s disturbing to see District Attorney Bragg waste federal resources for political purposes rather than addressing the serious crime in his city.”
“As a member of the House Judiciary and Oversight & Accountability Committees, and with an almost insurmountable national debt that exceeds $1 trillion, the nation simply cannot afford to support Mr. Bragg’s politicization of the criminal justice system,” the Arizona Republican added.
Bragg indicted President Trump last week on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, however, his charges were brought on a shaky and weak legal framework which many legal experts have called out.
Given the unprecedented indictment of a former president, one would imagine that there would have been tougher charges, however, the weakness of the case proves that the case being brought by Bragg is nothing but political persecution to get rid of the leading Republican candidate for the 2024 presidential election.
