The Department of Justice has denied any form of collusion with Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg in former president Donald Trump’s high-profile hush-money case, which resulted in a guilty verdict late last month.
U.S. assistant attorney general Carlos Uriarte sent a letter to House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) late Monday, assuring him that no correspondence has been shared between the DOJ and Bragg’s office from the start of the case in January 2021 to the conviction made less than two weeks ago.
“The Department does not generally make extensive efforts to rebut conspiratorial speculation, including to avoid the risk of lending it credibility,” Uriarte wrote. “However, consistent with the Attorney General’s commitment to transparency, the Department has taken extraordinary steps to confirm what was already clear: there is no basis for these false claims.”
The new letter was written in response to Jordan’s request from late April.
At the time, the congressman said the DOJ took part in what he called a “politicized persecution” of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. He believed this to be the case because Matthew Colangelo, a former senior DOJ official, served as one of the lead prosecutors in Trump’s trial.
“Bragg hired Mr. Colangelo to ‘jump-start’ his office’s investigation of President Trump, reportedly due to Mr. Colangelo’s ‘history of taking on Donald J. Trump and his family business,’” Jordan wrote in his request for communications from Colangelo and other DOJ officials.
But Uriarte said the claim was “completely baseless” and asserted that no emails were found between the DOJ and Bragg’s office.
“This is unsurprising,” Uriarte wrote. “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, does not approve its charging decisions, and does not 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 this.”
Before joining the prosecution, Colangelo held a senior position at the New York attorney general’s office in addition to one at the DOJ. Letitia James, the state’s attorney general, led and won a civil case against Trump related to the real-estate mogul’s business fraud earlier this year.
Conservative watchdog America First Legal sued the DOJ last week, hoping to compel the federal agency to release records pertaining to Colangelo under the Freedom of Information Act. The DOJ has not yet released those documents, according to the lawsuit.
Uriarte’s response comes after U.S. attorney general Merrick Garland’s recent congressional hearing, in which Garland testified that the outcome of Trump’s hush-money trial was not influenced by the DOJ. Uriarte doubled down on his boss’s statement.
“Indeed, accusations of wrongdoing made without—and in fact contrary to—evidence undermine confidence in the justice system and have contributed to increased threats of violence and attacks on career law enforcement officials and prosecutors,” he said. “Our extraordinary efforts to respond to your speculation should put it to rest.”
In response to the letter, Judiciary spokesperson Russell Dye told National Review: “We are weighing all options as to what comes next.”
On May 30, Trump was convicted on 34 felony charges for falsifying business records in relation to a hush-money payment that his lawyer, Michael Cohen, made to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2006. In the time since the verdict was served, the former president has vowed to appeal what he views as an unjust, politically motivated ruling.