I did not 'dispatch' my former anti-Trump aide to New York to put the former president on trial: Attorney General Merrick Garland breaks silence on controversial prosecutor

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Attorney General Merrick Garland repeatedly said he did not 'dispatch' former Justice Department senior official Matthew Colangelo to the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office ahead of the prosecution of former President Donald Trump.

House Republicans on Tuesday grilled Garland during a hearing about the unusual decision of Coalanelo to leave his high-ranking Justice Department position and take a prosecutor job with Bragg's office.

Garland emphatically denied the allegation that he had anything to do with it.

'That is false, I did not dispatch Mathew Coangelo,' he said. 'That is false. False.'

Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz asked Garland how and why Colangelo left Garland's Justice Department to take a lower-level job in Bragg's office in New York in December 2022. 

Attorney General Merrick Garland broke his silence on his former aide anti-Trump prosecutor Matthew Colangelo and claimed he 'did not dispatch' him from Department of Justice to the Manhattan District Attorney's office

'I assume he applied for a job there and got the job,' Garland replied. 'I can tell you I had nothing to do with it.'

Former President Donald Trump and his allies repeatedly questioned Colangelo's role in his prosecution of the 'hush money' case, arguing that was evidence that Biden was connected to the investigation of his political rival. 

Gaetz made the connection a focus of his line of questioning during the hearing. 

'Colangelo makes this remarkable downstream career journey from the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. and then pops up in Alvin Bragg's office to go 'get Trump' — and you're saying that's just a career choice that was made,' Gaetz said incredulously.

Gaetz asked if Garland if he would provide all communications and documents from the Department of Justice and outside state prosecutors of Trump to the House Judiciary Committee for the sake of clearing up any suggestion of scandal or impropriety.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks after the guilty verdict in former U.S. President Donald Trump's criminal trial. Colangelo is on Bragg's right. 

Garland insisted the state and local investigations were independent of the Justice Department, and would not commit to releasing the documents.

'I get that. The question is whether or not you will provide all your documents and correspondence, that's the question. I don't need a history lesson,' Gaetz said.

Garland said that if House Republicans requested the documents, it would be processed under the normal process through the office of legislative affairs.

Gaetz argued that if Garland had nothing to hide, he should volunteer to make the communications public to assuage any skepticism surrounding the Justice Department's activity surrounding the investigation.

Gaetz made the connection a focus of his line of questioning during the hearing

'You come in here and you lodge this attack that it's a conspiracy theory that there is coordinated lawfare against Trump and when we say fine, just give us the documents, give us the correspondence and then if it's a conspiracy theory that will be evident,' he replied.

Garland's hesitancy to comply, Gaetz argued, was 'actually advancing the very dangers conspiracy theory that you're concerned about.'

Democrats appeared annoyed by Gaetz's claim, as Democratic Representative Steve Cohen responded by bringing up the Justice Department's investigation of allegations that the Florida Republican was involved with sex-trafficking.

In February 2023, the Justice Department informed Gaetz that they would not charge him in the months-long investigation.

Cohen told Garland that Gaetz was 'living testament to the fact, and direct evidence that you have not weaponized the Justice Department.'

'He was investigated for sex trafficking while many expected a prosecution, you chose not to prosecute this very active Republican,' Cohen said.

Garland declined to comment.

Colangelo, 49, has long maintained a virtually non-existent public profile while quietly rising to great heights in government.

Colangelo, 49, has long maintained a virtually non-existent public profile while quietly rising to great heights in government

He graduated from Harvard Law and then clerked for Judge Sonia Sotomayor on the U.S. Court of Appeals years before she became a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Colangelo then went to work for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as its director of 'economic justice.’

After that he hopped from the Obama Administration Labor Department to the Civil Rights division of the Justice Department and eventually to the Obama White House, where he served as a deputy assistant to the president and deputy director of the National Economic Council.

Then in 2017, his career took a distinctive turn after Donald Trump’s surprise electoral victory against Hillary Clinton.

Colangelo left Washington, D.C., to join New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who was deemed ‘the leader of the Trump resistance’ by Politico and had seemingly reoriented his office for one purpose: Destroying Donald Trump.