Rand Paul calls for DA Alvin Bragg to be jailed for ‘disgusting abuse of power’

Sen. Rand Paul ripped into Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on Tuesday over his handling of the criminal investigation into Donald Trump that might lead to the former president being indicted.

“A Trump indictment would be a disgusting abuse of power. The DA should be put in jail,” Paul (R-Ky.) wrote in a scathing tweet on Tuesday.

Paul is the latest Republican to accuse Bragg of leading a politically motivated investigation into the 76-year-old former president, who is accused of directing a $130,000 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016 in exchange for her silence about an alleged 2006 affair.  

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) wrote to the Democratic Manhattan DA on Monday calling his plans to charge Trump “an unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority.”

The two lawmakers stopped short of Paul’s demand that Bragg be jailed, but asked the prosecutor to hand over documents and testify about “what plainly appears to be a politically motivated” prosecution of the ex commander-in-chief.

Trump himself, who announced over the weekend that he expected to be arrested on Tuesday, has accused Bragg of “Prosecutorial Misconduct and Interference with an Election.” Last November, Trump declared that he would be running for president again in 2024. 

“Investigate the Investigators!” the former president wrote in a Truth Social post on Sunday.

Even Trump’s top potential 2024 GOP presidential primary rival has criticized Bragg for his efforts to charge the former president. 

While indicating that he wouldn’t get involved in “any way,” Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday called Bragg a “[George] Soros-funded prosecutor” that is using the Manhattan DA’s office to “impose a political agenda.”  

“He, like other Soros-funded prosecutors, they weaponize their office to impose a political agenda on society at the expense of the rule of law and public safety,” DeSantis told reporters during a news conference on Monday.

DeSantis went on to call Bragg and other Soros-backed district attorneys a “menace to society” for their soft-on-crime policies.

Paul’s tweet Tuesday wasn’t the first time he’s singled out Bragg on social media. 

In July 2022, the senator shared a news report on Bragg’s office’s decision to go easy on a 16-year-old with three prior felony arrests after the teen allegedly assaulted a police officer who confronted him for not paying his subway fare. 

“Democrat DA allows a violent attack on a cop to go unpunished…” Paul said in the tweet, referring to Bragg.