Rep. Andy Biggs wants to block Manhattan prosecution of Donald Trump

Rep. Andy Biggs announced Thursday that he has introduced legislation that would punish the Manhattan District Attorney for prosecuting former President Donald Trump over his business records.

The "No Federal Funds for Political Prosecutions Act" would prohibit state and local law enforcement agencies from using funds to investigate or prosecute the president, vice president or a presidential candidate in a criminal case, Biggs, R-Ariz., said.

It also would prevent using or property seized through asset forfeiture for such purposes.

Any agency the U.S. attorney general found to violate the law would lose some funding because they would be disqualified from receiving proceeds from property seized by the attorney general, or the seized property.

A New York grand jury voted in March to indict Trump, the first time a former president has been charged criminally, after investigating hush-money payments to two women who claimed to have had sex with him.

Trump surrendered to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office April 4 and pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business documents to conceal the payments.

Biggs and other Trump supporters have suggested that prosecution is aimed at hurting Trump's chances of reelection in 2024, as he is a leading Republican presidential candidate.

The charges normally would be misdemeanors had the business records not been falsified to conceal campaign expenditure violations, according to the case.

Biggs says charges politically motivated

“District Attorney Alvin Bragg ran on a campaign pledge to indict President Trump," Biggs said in a written statement announcing the legislation. "Bragg took the unprecedented action of converting alleged minor business misdemeanors to 34 individual felonies in an attempt to put President Trump behind bars and humiliate him and his supporters."

Biggs noted the potential cost of the prosecution and called it a "waste of federal resources."

The legislation has a clear partisan tone aimed at helping Republicans, but had it been in place when President Barack Obama ran for office, it could have prevented former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio from conducting a five-year investigation into Obama's place of birth.

Arpaio's investigation was largely funded through donations and volunteers, but in 2012 he used taxpayer money to send an investigator to the tropical island.

Another Biggs bill would cut off DA

Biggs also announced a second piece of legislation Thursday called the "Accountability for Lawless Violence In Our Neighborhoods Act," or the ALVIN Act.

That two-page legislation simply states that no federal funds can go to the Manhattan district attorney, and all such money shared with that office since Jan. 1, 2022, needs to be repaid.

Republicans hold a nine-vote majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, where both pieces of legislation were introduced. The proposals are unlikely to make it through the U.S. Senate, where Democrats hold a slim majority.

Biggs' legislation is not the only fallout for Bragg from his case.

Three House Republican committee chairs called for testimony from Bragg because of concerns his investigation would become “a politically motivated prosecutorial decision.”

Republican Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, James Comer of Kentucky and Bryan Steil of Wisconsin told Bragg in a March letter his actions could “erode confidence in the evenhanded application of justice” if he charged Trump. Jordan also subpoenaed a former prosecutor in Bragg's office.

Bragg responded by suing Jordan and seeking a restraining order on the subpoena. He called Jordan's actions “an unprecedentedly brazen and unconstitutional attack” on a local criminal case.

Reach reporter Ryan Randazzo at ryan.randazzo@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4331. Follow him on Twitter @UtilityReporter.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Rep. Andy Biggs bill would block New York prosecution of Trump