Rep. Jeff Van Drew said Wednesday on Newsmax that he finds it "unbelievable" that district attorneys like Alvin Bragg are "letting bad people out who have done bad things."
"That's what's mind-boggling," the New Jersey Republican said on Newsmax's "National Report."
"When I say bad things I mean violent acts, violent criminals."
But at the same time, he said, people like former bodega worker Jose Alba, 62, who testified at this week's House Judiciary Committee field hearing in Manhattan, end up being arrested after stabbing an assailant who attacked him in the Washington Heights convenience store.
Alba was initially charged with second-degree murder, but those charges were dismissed following public outcry. Video footage showed Simon attacking Alba.
"This was an older man," said Van Drew.
"Thank God he was in shape, and he survived but Bragg put him in jail until there was such an outcry that people said my God, he was defending his life. He would have died. So I guess in Bragg's mind, it would be better for an innocent man to die than to do what the innocent man had to do to survive?"
But Democrats have "no answers because they know it's wrong," said Van Drew. "They know crime has gone up in New York. They know crime has gone up in San Francisco. They know that crime has gone up unbelievably in Chicago. We see what happened over the weekend, the literal riots that happened in areas throughout our country where windows were smashed and people were beaten and cars were overturned. I mean, this is not our America."
It is the result, he added, of the DAs that were funded by Democrat megadonor George Soros.
"It's tens of millions of dollars going to make sure that DAs who are radically left win, and then, when not only they win, they make a huge difference in our system of law and order."
Meanwhile, violent criminals are "put back on the streets over and over again," said Van Drew. "Some of these crimes that have been committed are by somebody that's been in and out 20, 30, 40 times," said Van Drew. "As unbelievable as that may sound, it has to stop."
But Democrats at the hearing "wanted to talk about the former president, wanted to talk about Jan. 6, anything but the real deal."
Van Drew said that there may be a few more field hearings to learn more, as "there is a certain scope in the ability for the Judiciary Committee to do legislation."
Other steps though, could include a cutback of federal funding, because "if you get money to decrease violent crime, but you use it for the exact opposite, perhaps you don't get that federal money anymore. That's just one example."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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