Republican Representative Jim Jordan Calls for Ending Federal Funding for Prosecuting Trump

House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is proposing a plan to defund the prosecutors who have initiated cases against former President Donald Trump as he seeks re-election.

Jordan presented the proposals on Monday to halt “politicized prosecutions” as part of his fiscal year 2025 budget request to House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole, R-Okla.

“We have scrutinized the troubling increase in politicized prosecutions and the misuse of ‘lawfare’ tactics to target political adversaries,” Jordan wrote. “We have witnessed rogue prosecutors exploiting the rules of professional conduct and their duty to deliver justice for politicized objectives.

“We propose that the Appropriations Committee, with appropriate guidance from leadership, includes provisions to cut federal funding for state prosecutors or state attorneys general involved in lawfare and to eliminate federal funding for federal prosecutors engaged in such misconduct.

“Furthermore, the Judiciary Committee has passed specific bills that would help combat politicized prosecutions, and we urge the Appropriations Committee to consider integrating the policies outlined in each: H.R. 2553, the No More Political Prosecutions Act, and H.R. 2595, the Forfeiture Funds Expenditure Transparency Act,” he added.

Although the Trump cases and prosecutors are not explicitly named in the proposals, Judiciary Republicans confirmed in a post on X that the recommendations are directed 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 characterizing payments to lawyer Michael Cohen as “legal expenses.” Cohen had paid porn star Stormy Daniels to maintain silence before the 2016 presidential election about her alleged encounter with the former president, which Trump has denied.

Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges and vowed to appeal, while Bragg, the prosecutor in the case, commended the jury’s decision and emphasized that prosecutors abided by “the facts and the law without bias.”

Judge Juan Merchan scheduled sentencing for July 11, just days before the Republican National Convention where Trump is set to officially receive the GOP nomination.

Trump’s legal challenges will extend beyond July as three other criminal cases against him are pending. Smith is overseeing a classified documents case against Trump in Florida and a 2020 election interference case in Washington, D.C., while Willis is pursuing a 2020 election interference case against Trump in Georgia.

The former president has denied all charges and asserted his innocence, portraying himself as a victim of a “witch hunt.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., pledged on Sunday that Republicans will “fight back” with “everything in our arsenal” against “political retribution in the court system” that aims to target “political opponents.”

“We have the funding resources,” Johnson stated, as per The Daily Wire. “We have mechanisms to try to take control of that. We’ll be doing that within the confines of our jurisdiction.”

Following the Trump verdict last week, a group of GOP senators pledged to obstruct President Joe Biden’s agenda, including obstructing his political and judicial nominations, in response to what the group characterized as the White House’s “contempt for the rule of law.”