The powerful House Judiciary Committee has taken a significant step in its oversight activities by targeting a key figure at the Justice Department. Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) has formally requested that one of special counsel Jack Smith's lead prosecutors in the Mar-a-Lago documents case appear for a panel interview. The announcement underscores intensifying Republican scrutiny of former President Trump's legal battles. (RELATED: 50 Cent Confirms: Black Men Identifying With Trump Over Biden After Conviction)
House Republicans have long sought to exert oversight on what they consider politically charged prosecutions. The consensus among observers is that Jordan's latest move hopes to shed light on the internal workings and decision-making processes within the Justice Department.
As The Hill reports:
A Thursday letter to Jay Bratt accused the prosecutor of raising the specter of impropriety by taking meetings at the White House.
The inquiry gets at the heart of a favored but unsubstantiated GOP claim: that there may have been coordination between the Biden White House and those working on Trump's prosecution.
Jordan's letter homes in on three White House meetings Bratt took since the start of the Biden administration that he argues “raises, at the least, a perception of improper coordination.”
Two, however, were in 2021, before the National Archives alerted the Justice Department to the issues it was having recovering records from Trump's time in office, a referral that did not come until February 2022.
Bratt's third meeting, reported by The Washington Post, occurred in March 2023 and was explicitly related to the Mar-a-Lago probe. The prosecutor met with a career White House staffer who worked during the Trump and Biden administrations to discuss the case's timeline.
Jordan's letter sets the stage for further investigations into the handling of Trump's criminal trials as the general election heats up.
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