The House Judiciary Committee held an unusual “field hearing” in Manhattan to hear from local victims of violence -- a bank shot against Democratic Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is prosecuting a dubious case against former president Donald Trump while being accused of being soft on actual violent crime.
The New York Times responded with haughty defensiveness, rallying around both the city and prosecutor Bragg in “Republicans Attack Bragg, Spotlighting Crime Victims in New York” Wednesday, as reported by congressional reporter Luke Broadwater and Jonah Bromwich, who covers New York criminal justice.
One Republican bashed him as “pro-criminal.” Another called him a “terrible” prosecutor with a habit of losing cases. A third suggested he was in the pocket of a wealthy Jewish financier frequently demonized by the far right.
That “wealthy Jewish financier” would be billionaire and leading Democratic fundraiser George Soros. After downplaying Soros’s pro-Democratic election funding in an article earlier this month, this Times article never even bothers to confirm the connection between Soros and Bragg, leaving the implication that the Republican mention of him is motivated by random anti-Semitism.
But Soros pledged $1 million to support Color of Change PAC at almost the same time the PAC announced they would put $1 million into Bragg’s successful DA campaign, making Republican criticism legitimate. Isn’t the press usually more curious about political donations -- or is that just for conservatives who receive funding from, say, Charles Koch?
Two weeks after Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, announced 34 criminal charges against former President Donald J. Trump, House Republicans descended on his home turf on Monday to hold a hearing attacking Mr. Bragg’s record on crime, leveling exaggerated and sometimes outright false charges.
Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, convened his panel at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building to hear from an array of witnesses who have been outspoken critics of Mr. Bragg for a session that was ostensibly about crime in New York City but whose unmistakable subtext was an effort to tarnish the man who is prosecuting Mr. Trump.
Boo hoo! The paper made excuses for Bragg.
A single elected official most likely has little sway over crime trends in a major metropolitan area, and crime in Manhattan, where Mr. Bragg took office in January 2022, is down from last year by about 2.4 percent -- though it remains up significantly from two years ago.
Still, Republicans used individual crime victims to try to impeach his record….
The Times conflated anti-Soros protestors with anti-Semitism:
Antisemitism was on vivid display. Outside the Javits building, a man held a sign with the name of the financier George Soros, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, along with the image of a Star of David and dollar signs. Several Republicans inside the hearing room also focused their comments on Mr. Soros, whom they blamed for supporting the campaigns of progressive prosecutors, including Mr. Bragg’s.
Speaking of “dollar signs,” there was no comment from Democratic Rep. Ilhan “all about the Benjamins” Omar, whose own anti-Semitic comments were aggressively downplayed by the same paper.
No one would cynically ask if this is a "fake hate crime," that it's possible the sign is being held by a Democrat to help the narrative along. Did the reporters engage the man in an interview? Or was it too good to check?
“With antisemitic tropes emanating from House Republicans, it’s unsurprising, but no less vile, to see the Republicans bringing this antisemitism to New York outside today’s stunt hearing in Manhattan,” said Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the top Democrat on the committee.
Chaos erupted as the lawmakers left, with anti-Bragg protesters jeering.
Government-funded NPR joined in to defend New York City from scurrilous Republican allegations in a story by Jasmine Garsd on Wednesday’s Morning Edition headlined “Some Republicans say New York is in the grips of a crime wave. Experts say not at all.”
What would we do without “experts”?
