Manhattan DA's Office 'Won't Be Intimidated'

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement that his office "will not be intimidated" after House Republicans accused him of abusing his authority while investigating former President Donald Trump.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and other GOP leaders wrote in a letter to Bragg that he is "reportedly about to engage in an unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority: the indictment of a former president of the United States," after Trump claimed that he would be arrested this week.

"We will not be intimidated by attempts to undermine the justice process, nor will we let baseless accusations deter us from fairly applying the law," a spokesperson for Bragg said in a statement.

Bragg's office also touted the district attorney's achievements while in office, including a 32% reduction in homicides in Manhattan and a 14% reduction in shootings in the borough so far this year. This follows a 16% drop in Manhattan homicides during Bragg's first year and an 11% decline in shootings in that area during that time. The City of New York's official crime statistics are not broken down by borough.

The statement added, "New York remains one of the safest big cities in the U.S. with a far lower murder rate than the most populous cities where the Committee Chairmen hail from — Ohio, Wisconsin, and Kentucky."

In 2022, New York City reported a murder rate of five homicides per 100,000 people with 433 murders in a city of just over 8.4 million people. During that same time, Columbus, Ohio, with a population of about 900,000, reported 140 homicides for a murder rate of about 15 homicides per 100,000 people; Milwaukee reported a murder rate of 37.5 homicides per 100,000 people after reporting 214 homicides in a city of about 570,000 people in 2022; and Louisville, Kentucky reported 160 homicides in 2022 in a city of about 630,000 people for a rate of about 25 murders per 100,000 people.

Bragg's office concludes the statement by saying, "In every prosecution, we follow the law without fear or favor to uncover the truth. Our skilled, honest and dedicated lawyers remain hard at work."

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