Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin pushed back Thursday against suggestions that an upstate prosecutor helped his tough-on-crime campaign by under-charging an Army veteran who attacked him on stage — allowing the man to walk free just hours after the potentially deadly incident.

Democrats have without evidence alleged that Monroe County District Attorney Sandra Doorley charged Army vet David Jakubonis with the minor rap of attempted assault in the second degree — knowing that he would be swiftly released early last Friday and that Zeldin would be able to use that to aid his push for bail reform to be rolled back.

Jakubonis subsequently became a go-to talking point on the campaign trail for Zeldin as he makes the case against bail reform ahead of the Nov. 8 election against Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul.

“I do have a pre-existing relationship with the Monroe County District Attorney and she’s an exceptional district attorney. And from the get-go, she made the very smart decision to make sure that she was not involved in this case,” Zeldin said.

“The decision that was made [on charging Jakubonis] was done without her involvement. And I’ve seen some in the media who have tried to suggest otherwise, but the Monroe County district attorney is absolutely exceptional and she handled this case correctly and in my opinion, very exceptionally.” Zeldin said at a virtual news conference Thursday.

The veteran prosecutor has said she recused herself from the case soon after witnessing Jakubonis allegedly confront Zeldin with a bizarre pointed weapon at a July 21 campaign event outside Rochester.

“The attacker will likely be instantly released under NY’s laws,” Zeldin tweeted early last Friday morning.

Criminal justice reforms approved by Democrats in recent years meant cash bail could not be imposed on Jakubonis – who reportedly has mental health problems – unless he was charged with a more serious offense.

“Just as I predicted, after the man who tried stabbing me last night was charged with Attempted Assault in the Second Degree, a felony, he was then immediately released under the state’s insane cashless bail law, which MUST be repealed!” Zeldin tweeted Friday morning.

Jakubonis was later jailed by federal officials who charged him with assaulting a sitting member of Congress, but that has hardly quieted the state-level controversy over the case.

Doorley was named as a co-chair of Zeldin’s campaign months ago and spoke at an event boosting his candidacy as late as last May despite concerns that involving herself in the race might run afoul of state ethics rules for DAs, according to the Times Union.

Political rivals of the GOP standard bearer have tried to make a case that she pushed prosecutors to go easy on Jakubonis to give Zeldin a new attack line against bail reform — largely based on opinion.

“Here’s a situation where someone attacks an elected official with a weapon. Could it have been — as some people are suggesting — that the charge was drafted in such a way as to allow Zeldin to complain about the bail laws in the state of New York? That I don’t know,” Assembly Judiciary Chairman Charles Lavine (D-Nassau) wondered in an article by The New York Times.

Doorley has a record of pursuing more serious charges compared to other prosecutors such as controversial Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, but it is not clear if she was directly involved in the initial charge against Jakubonis.

Bail reforms have been a political lightning rod in state politics since Albany Democrats in 2019 passed sweeping changes to state laws overseeing cash bail, criminal discovery and the criminal trial process.

Reported cases of burglary and grand larceny jumped by double digits in the months following implementation of the new laws, according to a report released Thursday by the right-leaning Manhattan Institute.

Defenders of the reforms have leaned on other statistics that show just 2% of criminal defendants get rearrested for violent felonies while their cases get adjudicated.

Zeldin this week joined calls by New York City Mayor Eric Adams for an extraordinary session of the state Legislature to change state bail laws, a proposal that Albany Democrats appear unlikely to act on months after approving some changes in the state budget.

The Jakubonis case is just one example of how restrictions on cash bail have gone too far in cases involving potentially dangerous people, according to Zeldin, who wants to give judges more discretion to jail people before their trials.

“You can use this as one particular example but there are many different examples of where someone gets put right back out on the street very quickly,” Zeldin said Thursday.