House GOP's Sunshine State retreat turns into a Trump defense play

ORLANDO, Fla. — House Republicans are back in a familiar position: as Donald Trump's political defensive line.

With a New York defense attorney reportedly preparing for the possibility that the former president will be indicted on criminal charges related to a payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels, the House GOP is taking the extraordinary step of demanding testimony from Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg amid an ongoing investigation.

Three GOP chairs — Reps. Jim Jordan (Ohio), James Comer (Ky.) and Bryan Steil (Wis.), who oversee the Judiciary, Oversight and Administration panels, respectively — wrote Bragg on Monday demanding he sit down with committee aides, as well as hand over a broad swath of documents related to possible federal support he may have received, including any communications with the Justice Department or other federal law enforcement.

"In light of the serious consequences of your actions, we expect that you will testify about what plainly appears to be a politically motivated prosecutorial decision,” the three GOP lawmakers wrote, referring to reports that Trump could be indicted as a bid to "unalterably interfere in the course of the 2024 presidential election." Bragg’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the letter.

POLITICO first reported on Monday that House Republicans would be firing off letters to Bragg after Speaker Kevin McCarthy teased that Jordan would act on the potential Trump indictment. But the speed with which the Jordan-Comer-Steil letter emerged indicates how thoroughly the former president's legal peril has upended House Republicans' annual retreat here in Trump's adopted home state.

The chamber's new GOP majority had hoped to use its three-day confab in Florida to talk up its agenda for the next two years in power. Instead, they've been inundated with questions about the former president’s weekend announcement that he is expecting to be arrested on Tuesday.

Bragg's office has pursued a case against Trump that stems from a hush money payment given to Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign. At the time, the porn actress had considered selling her story of an affair with Trump.

Roughly half of the questions House Republicans got from reporters during their first Florida press conference on Sunday night were related to the former president, who on Saturday called for his followers to protest his possible arrest and "take our nation back. GOP lawmakers also fielded Trump questions on Monday morning.

Meanwhile, Jordan briefly stepped out of a House GOP meeting to appear on Fox News — where he went on defense for Trump, arguing a potential indictment was being driven by the former president's 2024 campaign.

"President Trump announced he would run for president again. Suddenly, here they go. Now they come after him for some alleged bookkeeping error?" Jordan said on Fox News, asking "what do they want President Trump to do — was he supposed to use campaign money [to pay Daniels]? You can't do that,” he added.

Jordan's description of the case against Trump as "ridiculous" echoed McCarthy's own remarks on Sunday night.

Bragg has "pride[d] himself on not prosecuting felonies actually lowering them down to misdemeanors, which has caused a lot of the crime and why people have risen up,” McCarthy told reporters on Sunday, contending that "you can go through … lawyer after lawyer after lawyer [who] will tell you this is the weakest case out there."