House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan issued a subpoena to a former New York County Special Assistant District Attorney who worked in the same Manhattan office currently led by Alvin Bragg and who resigned when the office declined to pursue a criminal indictment against Donald Trump.
The subpoena of Mike Pomerantz comes as a scathing rebuke against the unprecedented, politically-motivated indictment and arraignment of the former president for alleged felony campaign finance violations.
Last month, Pomerantz was invited on a voluntary basis to share what he knew about the criminal investigation, citing his work history and specific role in the DA’s office. He subsequently declined to participate.
“[W]e requested that you voluntarily cooperate with our oversight by providing relevant documents and testimony pertaining to your role as a special assistant district attorney leading the investigation into the former President’s finances,” Jim Jordan’s cover letter to Pomerantz stated, before detailing that he “would not cooperate with our oversight.”
As Trending Politics News wrote of Pomerantz, he was initially brought into the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in 2019 by previous DA Cyrus Vance, Jr. to look into “potential financial crimes committed by” the former president and eventually resigned in 2021 when no criminal charges were pursued.
BREAKING: House Judiciary chair Rep. Jim Jordan has subpoenaed Mark Pomerantz, who resigned from the Manhattan DA's office in February 2022 over Bragg's then reluctance to pursue the case against Trump.
The subpoena directs Pomerantz to appear before the committee April 20th. pic.twitter.com/GCIRotcxxc
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) April 6, 2023
Trending Political News further described his involvement in the Trump case by noting that, although he left the case as a professional, he nonetheless pursued the case as a private citizen, writing:
Pomerantz was hired as a special assistant district attorney in 2019 by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office to investigate potential financial crimes committed by former President Donald Trump and his businesses. He was tasked with examining documents and records related to Trump’s finances and working with other prosecutors to determine whether criminal charges should be brought against him.
In February 2021, Pomerantz resigned from the Manhattan DA’s office after the district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr., decided not to pursue criminal charges against Trump at that time. However, Pomerantz continued to be involved in the case as a private citizen, and he published a book in early 2022 that detailed his work on the investigation.
CNN noted that in a separate cover letter addressed to Pomerantz, Chairman Jordan highlighted the publishing of the book as an unavoidable fact that he now had no “basis to decline to testify” in front of the Committee.
In the subpoena letter, Jordan writes that because of Pomerantz’s book and public media appearances, he has “no basis to decline to testify about matters before the Committee.”
“Just this month, you published a book excoriating Bragg for not aggressively prosecuting President Trump, laying bare the office’s internal deliberations about the investigation and your personal animus toward President Trump,” Jordan wrote in the letter.
“It now appears that your efforts to shame Bragg have worked as he is reportedly resurrecting a so-called “zombie” case against President Trump using a tenuous and untested legal theory,” he later added. “Your book again unfairly disparaged President Trump, and now opens the door to examination about the District Attorney’s office commitment to evenhanded justice.”
“The book,” as Trending Political News continued, “titled “The Prosecutor: One Man’s Battle Against Mafia Corruption and Wall Street Greed,” includes an extensive discussion of Pomerantz’s investigation into Trump’s finances and sheds light on the disagreements among prosecutors about the viability of the case.”
The book admitted that political pressure surrounding the investigation and possible indictment weighed heavily on the decision-making.
The House Judiciary Committee released an official statement on the subpoena, posting to their website the following message:
Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) subpoenaed former New York County Special Assistant District Attorney Mark Pomerantz to appear before the Committee for a deposition. As a special assistant district attorney, Pomerantz led the investigation into President Donald Trump’s finances before resigning in protest after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s initial reluctance to move forward with charges against President Trump.
Pomerantz publicly criticized Bragg for failing to aggressively prosecute President Trump and even wrote a memoir describing his eagerness to investigate President Trump and disclosing internal deliberations about the investigation. Pomerantz’s public statements about the investigation strongly suggest that Bragg’s prosecution of President Trump is politically motivated. The Committee requested Pomerantz’s voluntary cooperation in a letter on March 22, 2023, but he refused to comply at the direction of the New York County District Attorney’s Office.
Furthermore, the Manhattan DA’s Office has acknowledged that it used federal forfeiture funds in its investigations of President Trump, including during Pomerantz’s tenure. The Committee is conducting oversight of Bragg’s unprecedented prosecutorial conduct to inform the consideration of potential legislative reforms that would, among other things, prevent state or local politically motivated prosecutions of current or former presidents.
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