I did not ‘send’ my former anti-Trump aide to New York to try the former president: Attorney General Merrick Garland breaks silence on controversial prosecutor

Attorney General Merrick Garland repeatedly said he did not “send” former senior Justice Department official Matthew Colangelo to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office ahead of the prosecution of former President Donald Trump .

House Republicans blasted Garland Tuesday during a hearing over Coalanelo’s unusual decision to leave his senior position at the Justice Department and take a job as a prosecutor in Bragg’s office.

Garland emphatically denied the accusation that he had anything to do with it.

“That’s not true, I didn’t send Mathew Coangelo,” he said. ‘That is not true. Not true.’

Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz asked Garland how and why Colangelo left Garland’s Justice Department in December 2022 to take a lower-level job in Bragg’s New York office.

“I assume he applied there and got the job,” Garland replied. “I can tell you I had nothing to do with it.”

Former President Donald Trump and his allies repeatedly questioned Colangelo’s role in his prosecution of the “hush money” case, arguing that it was evidence that Biden was connected to the investigation into his political rival.

Gaetz made the connection a focus of his questions during the hearing.

“Colangelo makes this remarkable career journey from the US Department of Justice in Washington DC and then shows up in Alvin Bragg’s office to ‘go get Trump’ – and you’re saying this is just a career choice that’s been made,” Gaetz said. incredible.

Gaetz asked Garland if he would provide all communications and documents from the Justice Department and Trump’s outside prosecutors to the House Judiciary Committee to clear up any suggestion of scandal or impropriety.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks after the guilty verdict in the criminal trial of former US President Donald Trump. Colangelo is located to the right of Bragg.

Garland insisted that the state and local investigations were independent of the Justice Department and would not commit to releasing the documents.

‘I get it. The question is whether or not you provide all your documents and correspondence. I don’t need a history lesson,” Gaetz said.

Garland said if House Republicans requested the documents, they would be processed through the Office of Legislative Affairs under normal procedure.

Gaetz argued that if Garland had nothing to hide, he should volunteer to make the communications public to allay any skepticism about the Justice Department’s activities surrounding the investigation.

Gaetz made the connection a focus of his questions during the hearing

“You come in here and you make the attack that it’s a conspiracy theory that there’s coordinated legal action against Trump and if we say, fine, just give us the documents, give us the correspondence and then if it’s a conspiracy theory, that will be clear,” he replied.

Garland’s hesitation to comply, Gaetz argued, was “essentially furthering the dangers of the conspiracy theory you’re concerned about.”

Democrats appeared irritated by Gaetz’s claim, as Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen responded by bringing up the Justice Department’s investigation into allegations that the Florida Republican was involved in sex trafficking.

In February 2023, the Justice Department informed Gaetz that they would not charge him in the months-long investigation.

Cohen told Garland that Gaetz was “living proof of the fact and direct proof that you did not weaponize the Department of Justice.”

“He was investigated for sex trafficking, while many expected prosecution. You chose not to prosecute this very active Republican,” Cohen said.

Garland declined to comment.

Colangelo, 49, has long maintained a virtually nonexistent public profile as he quietly rose to great heights in government.

Colangelo, 49, has long maintained a virtually nonexistent public profile as he quietly rose to great heights in government

He graduated from Harvard Law and then clerked for Judge Sonia Sotomayor on the U.S. Court of Appeals, years before she became a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Colangelo went on to work for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as director of economic justice.

He then moved from the Obama Administration’s Labor Department to the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and ultimately to the Obama White House, where he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council.

In 2017, his career took a striking turn after Donald Trump’s surprising election victory over Hillary Clinton.

Colangelo left Washington, D.C., to join New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who was deemed by Politico as “the leader of the Trump resistance” and had seemingly reoriented his office toward one goal: destroying Donald Trump.