The Justice Department is pushing back against allegations that it colluded with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in the prosecution of former President Trump, writing in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee that such claims are “conspiratorial speculation” and “totally baseless.”
Deputy Attorney General Carlos Uriarte sent the letter, obtained by Fox News, to committee Chairman Jim Jordan on Monday evening, less than two weeks after a jury found Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree.
“The Committee requested information from the Department because of what you describe as a ‘perception that the Department of Justice is’ behind the District Attorney’s so-called ‘politicized prosecutions’ and a ‘perception that the Department The Biden Justice Department is being politicized and weaponized ‘for this purpose,’ Uriarte wrote in response to an April 30 letter Jordan sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland.
“The Department generally does not make significant efforts to refute conspiratorial speculation, particularly to avoid the risk of lending credibility to it,” Uriarte added. “However, consistent with the Attorney General’s commitment to transparency, the Department has taken extraordinary steps to confirm what was already clear: these false claims have no basis.”
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Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks to the media after a jury found former President Donald Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records, Thursday, May 30, 2024, in New York . (AP/Seth Wenig)
Jordan wrote in April that “New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg is engaged in one of these politicized prosecutions, led in part by Matthew B. Colangelo, a former senior Justice Department official.”
“Bragg hired Mr. Colangelo to ‘launch’ his office’s investigation into President Trump, apparently because of ‘Mr. Colangelo’s history of going after Donald J. Trump and his family business.’ Mr. Colangelo is now one of the lead prosecutors in the trial of President Trump,” Jordan said at the time, seeking certain communications from Colangelo and other Justice Department officials.
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Republican presidential candidate former U.S. President Donald Trump attends his criminal trial at New York State Supreme Court in New York on Wednesday, May 29. (Doug Mills/Pool via REUTERS)
But Uriarte said the Justice Department conducted an “extensive search of email communications from January 20, 2021, until the date of the verdict, between all officials in the department’s leadership, including all individuals political appointees in these offices, and the District Attorney’s Office regarding any investigation. or lawsuits against the former president” – including via Colangelo’s email account – and “found none.”
“It’s not surprising,” Uriarte told Jordan. “The District Attorney’s Office is a separate entity from the Department. The Department does not supervise the work of the District Attorney’s Office, approve its charging decisions, or try its cases. The Department has no control over the district attorney, just as the district attorney has no control over the department, the committee knows.
Uriarte also stated that “the self-justified ‘perception’ asserted by the Committee is completely baseless” and that “accusations of wrongdoing made without evidence – and in fact contrary to – undermine confidence in the justice system and have contributed to increasing threats. of violence and attacks against law enforcement officials and career prosecutors.
Attorney General Merrick Garland testifies during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the Department of Justice, Tuesday, June 4, 2024, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP/Jacquelyn Martin)
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“Our extraordinary efforts to respond to your speculations should put them to rest,” he said.