PA state Senate leader sees bipartisan support to impeach Soros-backed Philadelphia DA

Pennsylvania state Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman (R-Bellefonte) said this week that there is bipartisan support in the state House of Representatives to file articles of impeachment against Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner (D).

Corman, who's running for governor, sent a letter to the Republican-led state House on Tuesday, urging them to begin impeachment proceedings against Krasner, citing the prosecutor's "refusal" to "hold criminals accountable for the crimes that they commit."

Krasner was elected in 2017 with the help of $1.7 million from the George Soros-backed Philadelphia Justice and Public Safety PAC.

Under Krasner's tenure as district attorney, Philadelphia hit an all-time homicide record in 2021, but less than a tenth of about 21% of shootings that led to criminal charges resulted in convictions, the letter states.

"We're off to a bad start in 2022," Corman told the John Solomon Reports podcast on Wednesday, citing 100 carjackings already in the city since the start of the new year.

Krasner, he said, has "created a culture of crime, a culture of death."

The state Senate president cited former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter's opinion piece last month blasting Krasner for claiming, "We don't have a crisis of lawlessness, we don't have a crisis of crime, we don't have a crisis of violence."

"It takes a certain audacity of ignorance and white privilege to say that right now," the African-American Nutter wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer, noting that 521 people were killed in the city that year. "I have to wonder what kind of messed up world of white wokeness Krasner is living in to have so little regard for human lives lost, many of them Black and brown, while he advances his own national profile as a progressive district attorney."

Krasner has "had almost two-thirds of … the lawyers who worked in the DA's office leave over his tenure, which just speaks volumes," Corman said.

"As a leader of the state government, I think it's our job to, when you have these extreme situations, to start an inquiry," he continued. "[Are] this person's policies detrimental to the health and livelihood of people of Pennsylvania? Because it's not contained just to Philadelphia. I mean, obviously, this crime will migrate out in the suburbs, as well."

The impeachment process in Pennsylvania is similar to the federal process, Corman explained: The state House files articles of impeachment, holds hearings, eventually has a final vote, and if the decision to impeach is made, the state Senate would then hold a trial and require a two-thirds majority to remove the district attorney.

"I think this crisis has reached the level that, even though the voters just reelected him, that the citizens are in such risk in the city of Philadelphia that we need to take this review on," he said.

Removing Krasner will require bipartisan support, Corman acknowledged. Democrats, he said, "will just have to make a decision: Are they more worried about the progressive movement of their party, or are they more worried about the citizens they represent, health and livelihoods in the city of Philadelphia?"

Asked about reaction in the House to his call for impeachment, Corman said, "I spoke to both Republican, Democrat House members from particularly that part of the state and they agree with my assessment, and they're looking forward to moving forward."

While Corman has yet to receive an official response as to whether or not the House will begin impeachment proceedings, he said, "I do believe that articles of impeachment will be filed before too long."