The chairmen of three House committees have doubled down on their efforts to intervene in the hush money investigation into Donald Trump, ahead of possible criminal charges against the former president. The letter from the chairmen of the House Judiciary, Oversight and Administration committees to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg argued that they now feel compelled to consider whether Congress should take legislative action on three separate issues to "protect former and/or current Presidents from politically motivated prosecutions by state and local officials." This came after the three Republicans initially called on Bragg earlier this week to testify before their committees and criticised his investigation into Trump as an "unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority."

Bragg is investigating Trump's alleged role in a scheme to pay adult-film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election. The chairmen claimed in Saturday's letter that Bragg had not disputed "the central allegations at issue" - that his office is under "political pressure from left-wing activists and former prosecutors" and is "planning to use an alleged federal campaign finance violation, previously declined by federal prosecutors, as a vehicle to extend the statute of limitations on an otherwise misdemeanor offense and indict for the first time in history a former President of the United States." The potential criminal indictment of a former president and 2024 presidential candidate "implicates substantial federal interests, particularly in a jurisdiction where trial-level judges also are popularly elected."