Watch: Protesters disrupt GOP hearings with chants to indict 'traitor' Jim Jordan

Travis Gettys
April 17, 2023

Congressman Jim Jordan speaking with attendees at the 2021 AmericaFest. 

(Gage Skidmore/Flickr)

Protesters tried on Monday to disrupt a House Judiciary Committee hearing on violent crime in New York City.

The demonstrators packed into a hallway outside the hearing room with signs calling to indict committee chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), who they called a "traitor," reported Punchbowl News correspondent Mica Soellner.

The hearing will highlight violent crime in Manhattan, where district attorney Alvin Bragg is prosecuting Donald Trump on dozens of business fraud charges, and his office dismissed the hearing as a political stunt.

Several witnesses, including the mother of a homicide victim, a bodega clerk who was charged with murder that was later ruled self-defense and an anti-crime activist, are scheduled to testify.

The hearing was organized after Trump was indicted.

Watch the video below.

Watch: Nicolle Wallace nails Jim Jordan over his 'circus' hearing in Manhattan

Sarah K. Burris
April 17, 2023

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace criticized Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) for his "circus" hearing, bringing the House Judiciary Committee to Manhattan to attack District Attorney Alvin Bragg for what he said was a high rate of violent crime in the city.

"Whether all of this is really what Republicans should be doing with their time even in front of their own viewers and voters they got an authentic New York City welcome today in that they were routinely shouted at in the hallway," Wallace said. "Something Jim Jordan could have avoided if he had chosen a different location — like one with higher crime rates if that was his ostensible point today, for instance. Or maybe traveling just south of Jordan's own district, Columbus, Ohio, perhaps where the crime rate is about three times that of New York City."

She said that the "clown show" on display in New York wasn't about violent crime there or solving any other problems that Congress typically manages.

"It was about keeping their boss Donald J. Trump happy about showing him, Donald J. Trump, that no political stunt is too idiotic or illogical or unjustified to appease his badly damaged ego," she said.

The whole hearing was broadcast live on Fox News.

"There were witnesses called by the House Republicans, who, most of them are outspoken critics of Alvin Bragg. Many of them have actually really horror stories," said Luke Broadwater, New York Times congressional reporter. "You know, a loved one who was killed in the city or a relative who was the victim of an anti-Semitic attack, things like this. But they have since become outspoken critics of Alvin Bragg. So, they were chosen for those reasons. And that did present some times where Democrats were saying essentially, we feel your pain, we understand your case.

"You've been through a lot, but you are being used here. You are being used as pawns in a political game and that did prompt some backlash from some of the witnesses who went back and forth with some of the Democrats. But this was set up, as you said, with a single purpose to, you know, vilify Alvin Bragg to make him look bad for as long as they could keep it on television. And to support Donald Trump. You know, they definitely got some hours and hours of that in."

See the full conversation about the hearings below.

Wallace encourages Jim Jordan to explore cities with greater violent crime like his districtyoutu.be