The following is my statement on the Manhattan DA's indictment of President Trump. Our normal Weekly Wrap-Up email will arrive in your inbox this weekend.
Congressman Dan Bishop’s Statement on the Manhattan District Attorney’s Indictment of President Trump
WASHINGTON D.C- Rep. Dan Bishop (NC-08) released the following statement:
“Using state prosecutorial authority, especially in an unusual way, for political retaliation against a former President and/or to intimidate or manipulate his presidential candidacy violates the United States Constitution.
Everyone recognizes this is happening in New York. Some whose political spite for President Trump is boundless — and who may not appreciate the dangers of this precedent — are gleeful, but no one doubts the fact that political motivations are operating here.
For Americans who live in or frequent overwhelmingly Democrat urban areas, this is a cautionary tale. As the Left becomes more openly authoritarian, something of an Iron Curtain is descending on parts of the U.S. in which Democrat power is unchecked. Wrong-thinkers are persecuted - scofflaws skate.
People can flee this regime, and they are, but Congress should protect against political persecution across the U.S. Section 5 of the 14th Amendment gives it that power. Congress used that power the last time Democrats behaved like this, by enacting the Civil Rights Act of 1866.
Of course, Democrats will block remedial legislation as they tried to do then. But each chamber has broad investigative power, and the Republican House cannot shrink from investigating to its depth all the intrigue and political hackery leading to the Alvin Bragg indictment.
I saw to it in the January speaker negotiations that the Select Weaponization Subcommittee be fully empowered with compulsory process and broad investigative scope to expose every detail of actions like this to the American people. The subpoenas should now fly.
Ultimately, the American people will decide in 2024 whether they will countenance this descent into third-world, despotic criminalizing of political opposition … and all the consequences it will bring. The House’s work now is to give them the chance to peer into the abyss.”