House Judiciary chair subpoenas former prosecutor on Trump’s criminal case
Written by ABC AUDIO on April 6, 2023
(WASHINGTON) — House Republicans on Thursday took the next step in their probe of the Manhattan district attorney’s yearslong investigation of former President Donald Trump by issuing a subpoena to depose a former prosecutor in the office.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, one of Trump’s closest allies on Capitol Hill, subpoenaed Mark Pomerantz related to his role in investigating Trump and Trump’s businesses. The subpoena — which comes two days after Trump was arraigned on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, to which he has pleaded not guilty — is the first from the committee.
Pomerantz is one of the prosecutors who resigned in 2022 over District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s unwillingness to pursue their case against Trump. Bragg has said that he felt “more work was needed” on the matter. After Pomerantz left his role as a special assistant district attorney, he wrote a memoir about his time on the investigation.
Jordan wrote to Pomerantz along with the subpoena that his book and media appearances indicate he “has no basis to decline to testify about matters before the committee.”
“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,” Jordan wrote.
Pomerantz declined to appear before the committee last month for a transcribed interview. He could not be reached for comment on Thursday.
Earlier this week, in the wake of Trump’s arraignment, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said “Bragg’s weaponization of the federal justice process will be held accountable by Congress.”
Bragg’s office has been engaged in a back-and-forth with the House Republicans seeking to investigate his investigation, which his counsel has called an undue intrusion into New York affairs.
The Judiciary Committee said in a statement on Thursday that the GOP-led House may consider “legislative reforms that would, among other things, prevent state or local politically motivated prosecutions of current or former presidents.”
Bragg responded to the subpoena in a statement, saying Republicans continue “to attempt to undermine an active investigation and ongoing criminal case with an unprecedented campaign of harassment and intimidation.”
“These elected officials would better serve their constituents and the country, and fulfill their oath of office, by doing their jobs in Congress and not intruding on the sovereignty of the state of New York by interfering in an ongoing criminal matter in state court,” Bragg said.
He has refused to cooperate with the congressional requests so far and Jordan has left the door open on whether to take the step of subpoenaing him while he is overseeing an ongoing criminal case.
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