House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is floating a plan that would defund the prosecutors who have brought cases against former President Donald Trump as he seeks another term in the White House.
Jordan submitted the proposals Monday to stop "politicized prosecutions" as part of his fiscal year 2025 budget request to House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole, R-Okla.
"We have conducted oversight of the troubling rise in politicized prosecutions and the use of abusive 'lawfare' tactics to target political opponents," Jordan wrote. "We have seen rogue prosecutors abuse the rules of professional conduct and their duty to do justice in service of politicized ends.
"We recommend that the Appropriations Committee, with appropriate consultation from leadership, include language to eliminate federal funding for state prosecutors or state attorneys general involved in lawfare and to zero out federal funding for federal prosecutors engaged in such abuse.
"In addition, the Judiciary Committee has passed specific bills that would help to address politicized prosecutions, and we encourage the Appropriations Committee to consider including the policies contained in each: H.R. 2553, the No More Political Prosecutions Act, and H.R. 2595, the Forfeiture Funds Expenditure Transparency Act," he added.
While the Trump cases and prosecutors are not mentioned by name in the proposals, Judiciary Republicans confirmed in a post on X that the recommendations are aimed at Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
A Manhattan jury convicted Trump on Thursday on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records by calling payments to lawyer Michael Cohen "legal expenses." Cohen had paid porn star Stormy Daniels to not share stories before the 2016 presidential election about how she and the former president had a sexual encounter, which Trump has denied.
Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges and said his legal team would be "appealing this scam," while Bragg, who brought the case, praised the jury's decision and said prosecutors followed "the facts and the law without fear or favor."
Judge Juan Merchan has set sentencing for July 11, just days before the Republican National Convention to officially hand the GOP nomination to Trump.
Trump's legal woes will continue past July; however, as three other criminal cases brought against him have yet to be decided. Smith is leading a classified documents case against Trump in Florida and a 2020 election interference case in Washington, D.C., while Willis has brought a 2020 election interference case against Trump in Georgia.
The former president has pleaded not guilty to all charges and has denied any wrongdoing, claiming he is the victim of a "witch hunt."
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., vowed Sunday that Republicans will "fight back" with "everything in our arsenal" against "political retribution in the court system" that seeks "to go after political opponents."
"We have the funding streams," Johnson said, according to The Daily Wire. "We have mechanisms to try to get control of that. We'll be doing that within the confines of our jurisdiction."
In the wake of the Trump verdict last week, a coterie of GOP senators pledged to obstruct President Joe Biden's agenda, including standing in the way of his political and judicial nominees, following what the group called the White House's "mockery of the rule of law."