In a complaint filed on Tuesday, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg accuses House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan of engaging in a “transparent attempt to intimidate and destroy” his office’s efforts to prosecute former President Donald Trump.
The lawsuit adds to the legal drama surrounding Bragg’s investigation into Trump, which has been dogged for weeks by Republican assertions that the prosecutor’s pursuit of the former president was solely political. These claims were also at the heart of Jordan’s own investigation.
Mark Pomerantz, a former senior prosecutor in Bragg’s office, has been subpoenaed to testify, along with other requests for “secret papers and testimony from the district attorney himself as well as his present and former staff and officials.” Jordan’s subpoena for Pomerantz to testify on April 20 is being challenged in a 50-page lawsuit, which asks a federal judge to grant both an emergency and long-term remedy that would prevent its implementation. Pomerantz informed Jordan last month that he does not intend to cooperate with the subpoena as per orders from Bragg’s office.
Later on Tuesday, US District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil rejected Bragg’s plea for immediate relief, but the court could still halt the subpoena with other types of relief. She also scheduled an investigation hearing for April 19.
The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, claims that “Congress lacks any valid legislative purpose to engage in a free-ranging campaign of harassment in retaliation for the District Attorney’s investigation and prosecution of Mr Trump under the laws of New York.”
The federalist system and the interests of the State of New York’s sovereignty are directly threatened by that effort. This Court ought to prohibit the subpoena and stop this unconstitutionally harmful fishing expedition.
Jordan has been contacted by CNN for comment regarding the case.
In a tweet on Tuesday, the congressman attacked the case, writing: “First, they indict a president for no crime. Then, when we inquire about the federal cash they claim to have spent, they file a lawsuit to prevent congressional oversight.
In the lawsuit, Bragg challenges Jordan’s claim that the committee has the right to look into the $5,000 in federal monies used in connection with his office’s investigation of Trump that resulted in the indictment.
Bragg’s office’s legal representative previously declared that they would abide with a committee’s request for information regarding the usage of federal funds.
In the lawsuit, Bragg alleges that Trump, Jordan, and other committee members “are engaging in a campaign of intimidation, retaliation, and obstruction,” and that the politicians are to blame for the numerous threats that have been made against him in recent weeks.
According to the lawsuit, the District Attorney’s Office has received more than 1,000 calls and emails from Mr. Trump’s fans, many of which are threatening and racially charged, since he falsely claimed he would be arrested on March 18, 2023. Yet House Republicans are taking part in campaigns to disparage and smear the District Attorney and the grand jury procedure, not opposing them.
Jordan sent Pomerantz with a subpoena late last week in relation to his work looking into Trump and his commercial empire, as House Republicans sought to portray the recent indictment of the former president as being motivated by politics.
In his resignation letter, Pomerantz stated that the former president was “guilty of several felony offences” in relation to his yearly financial statements. Pomerantz left the Manhattan District Attorney’s office in 2022. A day after Bragg told him he wasn’t ready to pursue criminal charges at that time, the man announced his resignation.
“Pomerantz’s public statements on the probe strongly suggest that Bragg’s prosecution of President Trump is politically motivated,” the House committee stated in announcing the subpoena.
Trump entered a not guilty plea last week in Manhattan criminal court to 34 felony accusations of fabricating business documents.
