New York County Community Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks after former U.S. President Donald Trump appeared at Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, after his indictment by a Manhattan notable jury following a probe into hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels, in New York Borough, April 4, 2023.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit invite to block a House Judiciary Committee subpoena issued by its chairman Rep. Jim Jordan to a former prosecutor who played a key role in Bragg’s culprit investigation of ex-President Donald Trump.
The suit also asks a judge to rule that any potential future subpoena by the Judiciary Body or Jordan on Bragg himself, or other of his current and past employees, will “be invalid, unenforceable, unconstitutional.”
Bragg’s for escalates a battle that began when the Jordan, R-Ohio, and other Trump allies in the House recently revealed an inquiry into the D.A.’s prosecution of Trump that has demanded documents and other material.
The suit calls that enquiry an “unprecedently brazen and unconstitutional attack by members of Congress on an ongoing New York State criminal prosecution and investigation of earlier President Donald J. Trump.”
Later Tuesday, a magistrate judge rejected Bragg’s request for a temporary restraining rule against the subpoena issued to Mark Pomerantz, a former special assistant D.A.
But that judge scheduled an April 19 perceiving in Manhattan federal court on his challenge to the subpoena. The hearing was set a day before Pomerantz’s testimony would occur pursuant to the subpoena.
Bragg’s 50-page squawk says that “Congress has no power to supervise state criminal prosecution,” and accuses Jordan and his committee of engaging in “a race of intimidation, retaliation and obstruction.”
The suit names as defendants Jordan, the Judiciary Committee and Pomerantz.
Pomerantz and another prosecutor leave the D.A.’s office in early 2022 after Bragg indicated he would not pursue an indictment against Trump in connection with treacherous statements around the valuations of real estate assets owned by the Trump Organization. Pomerantz later wrote a hard-cover about his work on the probe.
Jordan and the committee had Pomerantz served with a subpoena last week, two days after Trump was arraigned in Manhattan Peerless Court on a grand jury indictment alleging 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
The prosecution, the before of any U.S. president, former or otherwise, is related to a $130,000 hush money payment that Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen transmitted porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election.
Bragg’s suit says that the subpoena, and other in requests by Jordan for information, “seek highly sensitive and confidential local prosecutorial information that belongs to the Office of the Area Attorney and the People of New York.”
“Basic principles of federalism and common sense, as well as binding Supreme Court
example, forbid Congress from demanding it,” the suit says.
Bragg argues that the subpoena for Pomerantz “has no legitimate legislative perseverance,” and that even if it did it is still not enforceable because it could allow the Judiciary Committee to seek secret grand jury facts and other investigative information that is protected by law.
Jordan quickly responded to Bragg in a tweet.
“First, they indict a president for no wrong,” Jordan wrote. “Then, they sue to block congressional oversight when we ask questions about the federal funds they say they habituated to to do it.”