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US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he plans to introduce legislation that would reject former President Donald Trump’s calls to defund the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department. This comes as the former president called on congressional Republicans to do so after getting indicted in New York for 34 counts of falsifying business records.
Schumer said on Tuesday that he would introduce a resolution rejecting Trump’s call to defund the FBI and the DOJ in the Democratic-controlled Senate. The Senate Majority Leader called the former president’s plea “a baseless, self-serving broadside against the men and women who keep our nation safe.”
Schumer said in a statement that the planned resolution would highlight the work done by the people who work in the two agencies, condemn the calls to defund the FBI and the DOJ and reject partisan attempts to cast doubt or question the credibility of the two agencies.
“The former president and his allies in Congress must not subjugate justice and public safety because of their own personal grievances,” said Schumer.
Trump called for his fellow Republicans to defund the two agencies one day after he was indicted by the New York grand jury in the investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. The former president, who previously announced that he would make a bid for another term in the White House in the 2024 elections, was indicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
Efforts by congressional Republicans to intervene in the former president’s investigation are being led by Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee. On the same day, Bragg filed a lawsuit against Jordan to stop what he called a “campaign of intimidation” against the criminal prosecution of the former president.
The lawsuit seeks to block Jordan’s subpoena of former Manhattan DA prosecutor Mark Pomerantz, who previously led the probe into the former president. Bragg, who is a Democrat, called Jordan’s subpoena of Pomerantz unconstitutional “incursion” into a state criminal case in retaliation for charging Trump, who is now the first US president to be criminally indicted.
US District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil set a hearing for the case on April 19, giving Jordan until April 17 to respond to Bragg’s complaint.
