Kevin McCarthy is the one now ‘weaponizing’ the House in Trump hush-money case | Opinion

As speaker of the House of Representatives, one would expect that Kevin McCarthy would support the judicial process. In America, the bedrock of that process is that anyone accused is innocent until proven guilty.

That is true today for former President Donald J. Trump and the case being considered by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. He has been interviewing witnesses for a possible case against Trump for allegedly falsifying business records.

That sounds boring, but the details of the possible case are salacious: Trump is being investigated for allegedly paying $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels to stay quiet about an affair she had with him. The payment was in the midst of the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump allegedly recorded the payment as a business expense.

Bragg has yet to indict Trump and file the case. But that did not stop the former president from tweeting to his supporters that his arrest was imminent. Trump said it would happen on Tuesday, March 21. Of course, it did not.

His bellowing about the indictment, however, led McCarthy, the Bakersfield Republican now representing much of Fresno County, to spring into action. On Monday, March 20, McCarthy tweeted “It doesn’t matter if it’s President Trump or a Democrat. Our justice system should not be used to target political opponents. Period.”

McCarthy’s office doubled down when asked for his view by The Bee Editorial Board:

“It is well documented that Alvin Bragg is a soft-on-crime district attorney who refuses to prosecute even violent criminals and has even reduced over 50 percent of felony prosecutions to misdemeanors. The American people see this situation for what it is — someone abusing their power to carry out a political attack.”

A spokesman for the speaker said “McCarthy believes it doesn’t matter if it is a Republican or Democrat, our justice system should not be used to target those with political differences.”

Just like that, McCarthy accused Bragg of politicizing the case, and pronounced the DA guilty. Never mind that the case had not been filed, that McCarthy had not reviewed court records, and no witnesses had been called into court nor defense offered.

Besides, there is the possibility that Trump might just be guilty.

In today’s court of social media, McCarthy let his opinion fly, the process and facts of the case be damned.

Trump’s slew of cases

There are legitimate questions around whether this particular case is serious enough to warrant the arrest of a former president. It would be the first such event in American history if it happens. Trump faces a slew of other legal problems:

▪ The New York attorney general has accused him of lying to lenders and insurers over the value of his assets. It is a civil, not criminal, case.

▪ In Georgia, a grand jury is considering whether the former president and his allies criminally interfered with the 2020 presidential election.

▪ Then there is the Justice Department investigation into whether Trump broke federal law for mishandling presidential records, in light of the trove of documents and other materials found at his Florida residence after he left the White House.

Who is weaponizing now?

It was the FBI raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate that led McCarthy to tweet how the Justice Department had become “weaponized’ against the GOP. He promised to investigate that if he became House speaker.

Upon winning the speaker’s seat in January, McCarthy promptly appointed Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan to the House Judiciary Committee and Kentucky Rep. James Comer to House Oversight. Both were also of the camp that saw “weaponization” in federal law agencies.

So it is ironic that, in advance of Bragg bringing his case, both Jordan and Comer fired a pre-emptive strike at the DA. On March 20 they and Rep. Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, who heads the House Administration Committee, sent a letter to Bragg asking for documentation on the Trump case and demanding he provide testimony to the various committees.

Whether Congress even has jurisdiction over a New York district attorney is a legal question. But McCarthy and his lieutenants have certainly learned how to activate their House committees.

Following the Jan. 6 rioting at the U.S. Capitol, McCarthy said Trump “bears responsibility” for what occurred. But two weeks later he made amends by visiting Trump in Florida.

His comments now about Bragg is another example of him lending cover to Trump. If there was ever a time for McCarthy and the GOP to move on from the former president, it is now. But does McCarthy have the courage to do just that? The answer would be no.