(Headline USA) The House Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, held a hearing on Monday evaluating the consequences of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s soft-on-crime policies.
The hearing, which was scheduled in response to Bragg’s political prosecution of former President Donald Trump, featured several victims who said their lives were upended by Bragg’s refusal to enforce the law.
One such witness was Barry Borgen, the father of a victim who was brutally attacked while walking to a pro-Israel rally near Times Square in May 2021. Borgen slammed Democrat leaders during the hearing, specifically calling out his fellow “Jewish New Yorkers,” Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., the committee’s ranking member, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., ABC7 reported.
“I called Mr. Schumer’s office, another Jewish New Yorker, numerous times. No one called us back,” Borgen told Nadler. “You have Jewish roots here, and behavior like this enables DA Bragg to just do whatever he wants to do. We wouldn’t vote for Mr. Schumer again. … And if I lived in Manhattan, I wouldn’t vote for you, either.”
Joseph Borgen was wearing a yarmulke when he was attacked and pepper-sprayed by a group of men who called him a “dirty Jew,” along with other anti-Semitic slurs. In response, Bragg offered one of Borgen’s assailants a plea deal that allowed him to serve just six months in prison.
Another witness, Madeline Brame, an Army veteran, told committee members about how Bragg failed to secure justice for her family after her son was killed in 2018.
“When Alvin Bragg came into office, he was handed a strong, trial-ready murder case and gang assault case against all four of these individuals,” she said. “He dismissed — completely dismissed — gang assault and murder indictments against two of the defendants clearly on video participating in the brutal, savage slaughter of my son. Hason was kicked, punched, stomped and stabbed nine times by four individuals whom he did not know, nor had he done them any harm.”
Madeline Brame, mother of a veteran who was murdered, on Dems bringing up Trump
“Victims can care less about anyone’s political ideology or party, neither do criminals. They don’t go up to a person & ask them if they’re Democrat or Republican before they bust them in the head” pic.twitter.com/YzxFRseBPT
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) April 17, 2023
In response to the victims’ testimonies, Democrats dismissed the hearing as a sham, with Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., going so far as to compare his GOP colleagues to “thugs.”
“If Republicans really wanted to stop violent crime, they would be in D.C. right now working with Democrats to pass commonsense gun legislation. Instead, like jackbooted thugs, they’ve descended on New York City, using violent crime as their pretext,” he claimed.
