Jim Jordan suggests cutting funds for prosecutors handling Trump’s cases

On Monday, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) submitted a plan to defund the prosecutors who are taking on Donald Trump in court battles that the former president — who is seeking re-election — and his allies claim are politically motivated.

The proposals, which appear in Jordan’s latest budget request to House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole (R-OK) for the fiscal year 2025, do not mention particular cases or any prosecutors by name, but they do describe situations that match the criminal matters involving Trump on the state and federal levels. The Judiciary Committee GOP confirmed on X that Trump prosecutors are the focus.

🚨 #BREAKING: @Jim_Jordan submits legislative proposals to DEFUND lawfare by Jack Smith, Fani Willis, Alvin Bragg, and Letitia James.

Also, no money for new FBI headquarters.

Read the full appropriations package here: https://t.co/YnofN174Xb pic.twitter.com/cmFOvXzRTL

— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) June 3, 2024

“We have conducted oversight of the troubling rise in politicized prosecutions and the use of abusive ‘lawfare’ tactics to target political opponents,” Jordan wrote in his cover letter to Cole. “We have seen rogue prosecutors abuse the rules of professional conduct and their duty to do justice in service of politicized ends. We recommend that the Appropriations Committee, with appropriate consultation from leadership, include language to eliminate federal funding for state prosecutors or state attorneys general involved in lawfare and to zero out federal funding for federal prosecutors engaged in such abuse.”

A New York jury returned a guilty verdict against Trump last week on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to allegedly cover up payments in a bid to conceal a tryst with adult film star Stormy Daniels as part of a “catch-and-kill” scheme to influence the 2016 election. Trump, who denied the affair and pleaded not guilty to the charges, said he would be “appealing this scam.” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who led the case, praised the jury and said his team followed “the facts and the law without fear or favor.” Sentencing is scheduled for July 11.

Three other criminal matters on the state and federal levels hang over Trump as he seeks re-election this year. Special counsel Jack Smith is spearheading a classified documents case and a 2020 election case against Trump in Florida and Washington, D.C., respectively. Georgia’s Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, is leading a separate 2020 case. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges he faces and claimed he is the victim of a “witch hunt.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has said that Republicans will “fight back” with “everything in our arsenal” against “political retribution in the court system to go after political opponents.” He also noted, “We have the funding streams. We have mechanisms to try to get control of that. We’ll be doing that within the confines of our jurisdiction.” In the Democrat-controlled Senate, a band of Republican senators have vowed to do what they can to stand in the way of President Joe Biden’s agenda — including opposing his political and judicial nominees — to protest the prosecutions against Trump, though their ability to stop forward progress on their own is limited.

Jordan’s fiscal 2025 budget proposals included several other provisions geared toward immigration enforcement, border security, protecting FBI whistleblowers, addressing crime in Democrat-run cities, and fighting censorship of public discourse on the internet. The chairman also took aim at the proposal to relocate the FBI’s headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Prince George’s County, Maryland. One section in Jordan’s cover letter to Cole notes testimony about alleged “misconduct” by leadership with the FBI and talks about a recommendation to include language “to eliminate any funding for the FBI that is not essential for the agency to execute its mission, including rescinding prior appropriations and prohibiting new taxpayer funding for any new FBI headquarters facility.”

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