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Experts say interference shows “breathtaking disregard” for norms

WASHINGTON, DC – As soon as news broke of former president Donald Trump’s indictment, members of Kevin McCarthy’s House MAGA majority rushed to voice their support for him. Some went even further by reportedly coordinating with Trump himself while attempting to intimidate Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and interfere with the investigation, now leading legal experts to call the interference “inappropriate” — and even saying it “tiptoes up to the edge of obstruction.”

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These MAGA House leaders are abusing their power to interfere with an indictment on 34 felony counts, voted on by a grand jury made up of everyday Americans and backed by troves of evidence and a paper trail. Instead of bending over backwards to do the bidding of the first ex-president charged with a crime, they should focus on their own flailing congressional investigations.”

Accountable.US spokesperson Derek Martin.

HuffPost highlights:

“Those House GOP figures who have made [it] their intent to interfere with Bragg’s investigation, and their alliance with the former president — reportedly taking calls from him [Thursday] night — it tiptoes up to the edge of obstruction,” said Norm Eisen, chair of the States United Democracy Center and a senior fellow in governance studies at The Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization.”

“I think there is a strong argument here that these letters have already crossed the line,” said [Wendy] Weiser, [director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law]. “The line you’re looking at, it’s a line between legitimate political discourse and inappropriate political interference. … They can complain as much as they’d like. But actually trying to obtain the records, confidential information, about a pending criminal case would be inappropriate for any criminal actor and certainly a congressional committee.”…“Even if they haven’t taken the step of using those powers,” she added, “the threat to use those powers inappropriately itself is inappropriate interference.”

“…The conduct of these House Republican chairmen so far “involves a breathtaking disregard of structural constitutional norms,” said John Greabe, director of the Warren B. Rudman Center for Justice, Leadership & Public Service at the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law.”

The new revelations follow recent reporting revealing the influence of conservative groups such as the Heritage Foundation, Conservative Partnership Institute, and Judicial Watch on these same MAGA leaders, playing a key role in shaping a dangerous agenda and helping to establish the GOP’s most aggressive policy positions. 

In the aftermath of the indictment, Accountable.US called out House Republicans for immediately stooping to support Trump. More broadly, Accountable.US has extensively tracked the extremism of Kevin McCarthy and his House GOP majority, as well as the far-right funders who bankroll them.

 

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