According to a statement, Republican leaders in the Assembly filed articles of impeachment against Attorney General Matt Platkin on Thursday.
Republicans accusedPlatkin of suppressing state police activity and targeting political opponents by abusing the Office of Public Integrity and Accountability, which is in charge of looking into police wrongdoing and corruption. The lawmakers charged that the attorney general was launching investigations to harm the State Police’s public image and diminish their efficacy.
Platkin has damaged public confidence in the Attorney General’s office and our police. To balance the balances of justice, we are beginning the impeachment process, Republican Assembly leader John DiMaio stated. The law does not exempt him.
A request for comment was not immediately answered by the attorney general’s office.
In particular, the resolution references an independent analysis of State Police traffic stops that the OPIA commissioned.
According to the report, the State Police still target minorities for traffic stops, even though data shows that they are complying with their legal duties, the resolution states. The State Police are unjustly discredited, public trust is violated, and the public’s confidence is eroded by OPIA’s choice to accept the study’s findings rather than relying on decades of data and research produced by the Office of the Attorney General’s own internal scrutiny.
A day after a state judge threw out racketeering charges against South Jersey power broker George Norcross and a number of others, the impeachment attempt was launched. Attorneys from Norcross demanded that Platkin quit after accusing him of pursuing politically motivated prosecutions.
The GOP resolution states that Matthew Platkin has used the Office of the Attorney General to target people with whom he disagrees politically due to his own political ambitions. This has caused these people and their families to suffer financial and professional setbacks as well as further harm to the office’s reputation.
The impeachment procedure in New Jersey is comparable to the federal procedure. The state Senate will hold a trial if a majority of Assembly members decide to remove a cabinet member from office. If two-thirds of senators vote in favor of convicting the cabinet member, the individual would be dismissed.
This tale is still in progress and will be updated.
