(Headline USA) House Republicans on Thursday subpoenaed one of the former Manhattan prosecutors who had been leading a criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump before quitting last year in a clash over the direction of the probe.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, ordered Mark Pomerantz to testify before the committee by April 30 as the committee probes possible prosecutorial abuse by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, days after Trump was charged in a 34-count felony indictment in connection with an alleged hush-money scheme.
Pomerantz refused to voluntarily cooperate with the committee’s request last month at the instruction of Bragg’s office, citing the ongoing investigation.
The Manhattan D.A.’s office has accused Jordan’s committee of overstepping its legal authority and infringing on New York state sovereignty, despite the fact that Bragg is attempting to use federal law to beef up the misdemeanor charges, which already have passed New York’s statute of limitations otherwise.
It is unclear that Bragg has the authority to do so, making it likely that Trump would have charges dismissed on appeal, even if convicted in the deeply biased Manhattan district.
However, Bragg is one of a wave of George Soros-backed district attorneys who have exploited the so-called prosecutorial discretion loophole to pursue an overtly partisan political agenda while ignoring basic criminal justice, with troubling implications for the entire American justice system.
Jordan has now written in a letter to Pomerantz, “Based on your unique role as a special assistant district attorney leading the investigation into President Trump’s finances, you are uniquely situated to provide information that is relevant and necessary to inform the Committee’s oversight and potential legislative reforms.”
A request for comment from Pomerantz was not immediately returned.
Republicans had rallied around Trump in the leadup to his indictment Tuesday, labeling Bragg’s investigation a “political persecution.”
Jordan and other senior GOP lawmakers see Pomerantz and Carey Dunne, who were top deputies tasked with running the investigation on a day-to-day basis, as catalysts for Bragg’s decision to move ahead with the hush money case.
Both men started on the probe under former District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., and Bragg asked them to stay when he took office in January.
Pomerantz released a book earlier this year titled People vs. Donald Trump: An Inside Account. In the book, he said that Vance authorized him in December 2021 to seek Trump’s indictment. He has portrayed the probe as perhaps the most challenging and legally fraught of the potential cases against the former president.
Jordan wrote Thursday that Pomerantz should be allowed to cooperate since he has “already discussed many of the topics relevant to our oversight” in the book he published and promoted. He went on to say that Pomerantz’s own book details how the case looking into “Trump appears to have been politically motivated.”
“Specifically, you describe your eagerness to investigate President Trump, writing that you were ‘delighted’ to join an unpaid group of lawyers advising on the Trump investigations, and joking that salary negotiations had gone ‘great’ because you would have paid to join the investigation,” the Jordan letter continued.
Bragg called the subpoena another example of a Republican “attempt to undermine an active investigation and ongoing New York criminal case.”
“Repeated efforts to weaken state and local law enforcement actions are an abuse of power and will not deter us from our duty to uphold the law,” Bragg wrote in a tweet.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
