Democrats are dismissing Monday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing in New York City on the city’s exploding crime as "political" and "the bidding of Donald Trump."
Republicans are hosting several speakers on crime in the city, which saw major crimes rise 22 percent last year. New York officials reportedly urged Republicans to cancel the hearing, and C-SPAN is refusing to carry it live.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D., N.Y.) dismissed the hearing as the "bidding of Donald Trump" because the area is under the authority of Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought charges against Trump earlier this month for alleged hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Nadler and Democrats are focusing on gun control and mass shootings while Republicans brought speakers detailing harrowing crime experiences in the city, including a woman whose boyfriend was murdered and a bodega owner who was arrested for defending himself against an attacker.
NYPD officers are fleeing the "unfixable" city and Democrat officials are telling store owners to ban face masks to help catch shoplifters. Left-wing advocates have said shoplifters are poor individuals trying to get by in one of the country’s most expensive cities, but new data show nearly a third of shoplifting cases in the city are committed by a small group of organized thieves.
Republicans are probing Bragg and his office after this month’s arrest of Trump. Bragg is suing Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) to stop his subpoena of a former Bragg staffer who left the office over the Trump case. Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records on April 4.