McCarthy blasts Manhattan DA over expected Trump indictment, calls for investigation into election interference

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Saturday accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of “an outrageous abuse of power” after former President Donald Trump claimed he would be arrested on Tuesday.

The California Republican called on Congress to immediately investigate potential election interference through “politically motivated prosecutions” targeting Mr Trump.

“Here we go again – an outrageous abuse of power by a radical prosecutor who lets violent criminals walk as he pursues his political revenge against President Trump,” McCarthy wrote in a Twitter post on Saturday. . “I call on the appropriate committees to immediately investigate whether federal funds are being used to subvert our democracy by interfering in elections with politically motivated prosecutions.”

The former president cited leaked information from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office that he would be arrested in the coming days.

In an article on Truth Social on Saturday, Mr Trump called on his supporters to protest what he called a politically motivated indictment for alleged silent money payments in 2016.

A spokesman, Mr. Bragg, declined to comment.

Mr Trump would become the first former president in US history to face impeachment if it occurs.

House Republican Conference Speaker Elise Stefanik, a Republican from New York, warned that the indictment would usher in a disturbing new era in American politics.

“It’s not American and the radical left has hit a dangerous new low in third world countries,” Ms Stefanik said. “What these corrupt left-wing prosecutors like Alvin Bragg and their socialist allies fail to understand is that America’s earliest patriots have never been more motivated to exercise their constitutional rights to peacefully organize and VOTE at the ballot box for save our great republic.”

A spokesperson for Mr. Trump said the former president had received no official notification from prosecutors of an impending arrest “other than unlawful leaks from the Justice Department and the prosecutor’s office, to NBC and to other fake media”.

“President Trump rightly points out his innocence and the weaponization of our system of injustice,” the spokesperson told The Washington Times.

A Manhattan grand jury heard from witnesses in a multi-year investigation into payments Mr Trump allegedly made to porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal in 2016 through his lawyer Michael Cohen .

Mr. Cohen, who pleaded guilty to violations of campaign finance law and lying to Congress, said the payments were to buy his silence about previous dealings with Mr. Trump.

Mr Trump denied the allegations and called the investigation a “witch hunt”.

Ms Daniels has met with prosecutors in recent weeks. Two former aides to Mr Trump – former political adviser Kellyanne Conway and former spokeswoman Hope Hicks – also met with prosecutors.

Law enforcement officials in New York have been making security preparations for Mr. Trump’s possible indictment.

Mr. Bragg has not publicly announced a deadline for the grand jury to conclude its work on the case or any potential vote on whether to indict Mr. Trump.

Vivek Ramaswamy, who is challenging Mr Trump for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, said an “impeachment of Trump would be a national disaster”.

“It is unAmerican for the ruling party to use police power to arrest political rivals,” Ramaswamy wrote on Twitter on Saturday. “This will mark a dark moment in American history and undermine public confidence in our electoral system itself. I call on the Manhattan District Attorney to reconsider this action and set aside partisan politics in the service of preserving our constitutional republic.

Others predicted that an indictment of Mr. Trump would cement his victory in 2024. Twitter owner Elon Musk predicted: ‘If this happens, Trump will be re-elected in a landslide victory’ in a post on his platform .

Senator JD Vance, Republican of Ohio, who received Mr Trump’s endorsement ahead of his victory in the midterm elections in November, said that “a politically motivated lawsuit strengthens the case for Trump.

“We just don’t have a real country if justice depends on politics,” Mr Vance wrote on Twitter.