In the United States, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on Tuesday sued Rep. Jim Jordan in an extraordinary move as he seeks to end a House Judiciary Committee investigation that the prosecutor says , is a “transparent campaign to intimidate and attack him” for his indictment of former President Donald Trump.
Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, is asking a judge to invalidate subpoenas that Jim Jordan, the committee’s Republican chairman, has issued or plans to issue as part of an investigation into Mr. Bragg, the first criminal prosecution of a former US president.
U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil, a Donald Trump appointee who previously served as a federal bankruptcy court judge, declined on Tuesday to take immediate action in the lawsuit. She has scheduled a first hearing for April 19 in Manhattan, the day before the committee plans to question, under subpoena, a former top prosecutor involved in the Donald Trump investigation.
Alvin Bragg’s trial, a determined escalation after weeks of fighting Rep. Jordan and other Republican lawmakers via letters and media statements, is aimed at ending what he says is a “death expedition.” constitutionally destructive fishing” that threatens the sovereignty and integrity of a state-level prosecution.
“Congress has no valid legislative purpose to engage in a full-scale harassment campaign in retaliation for the district attorney’s investigation and prosecution of Mr. Trump under New York law,” says the suit, citing the lack of authority in the Constitution for Congress “to oversee, let alone disrupt, pending criminal cases under state law.”
In response, Mr Jordan wrote on Twitter on Tuesday: “First, they are indicting a president for no crime. Then they file a lawsuit to block congressional oversight when we ask about the federal funds they say they used to do so. »
The Judiciary Committee recently issued a subpoena seeking testimony from a certain Mark Pomerantz, the former prosecutor who previously oversaw the Donald Trump investigation and argued with Mr Bragg over the direction the investigation was taking. had to take before he left office last year. Mr. Pomerantz, who refused to cooperate with the committee, is subpoenaed to testify during a deposition on April 20 unless Judge Vyskocil intervenes. The committee also requested documents and testimony from the prosecutor’s office, but Mr. Bragg denied those requests.
The committee is due to hold a hearing in Manhattan on Monday on crime in New York and what it alleges are Judge Bragg’s “pro-crime, anti-victim” policies. The district attorney’s office, however, points to statistics showing that violent crime in Manhattan has declined since Mr. Bragg took office in January 2022.
In response, Judge Bragg said if Rep. Jordan, an Ohio native, “really cared about public safety,” he would visit some of the major cities in his home state, where crime is reported. higher than in New York.
Judge Bragg targeted before Trump indictment
Judge Bragg is represented in the lawsuit by Theodore Boutrous, a well-known attorney who also represented Donald Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, in legal tussles with her famous uncle.
Judge Vyskocil previously made headlines when she dismissed a libel suit brought against Fox News host Tucker Carlson by former Playboy model Karen McDougal, which was paid $150,000 through from the National Enquirer to remain silent about an alleged sexual encounter with Donald Trump. In on-air remarks, Mr Carlson called the gain a ‘classic case of extortion’, but Judge Vyskocil ruled in 2020 that the conservative commentator was engaging in ‘rhetorical hyperbole and opinionated commentary’ and that he “did (not) state real facts”.
In his lawsuit, Judge Bragg said he was suing “in response to a brazen and unprecedented unconstitutional attack by members of Congress on an ongoing criminal prosecution in New York State and an investigation into former President Donald J. Trump”.
Mr. Trump was charged on March 30 with 34 counts of falsifying business documents related to bribes paid during the 2016 campaign to bury allegations that he had extramarital sex. He denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty during an arraignment last week in Manhattan.
Republicans have denounced Judge Bragg even before Donald Trump was indicted, with Rep. Jordan leading the case by sending a series of letters and subpoenas to those involved in the case. Mr. Pomerantz refused to voluntarily cooperate with the committee’s request last month under instruction from Mr. Bragg’s office, citing the ongoing investigation.
Mr. Jordan sees Mr. Pomerantz and Carey Dunne, who were the principal deputies in charge of carrying out the day-to-day investigation, as catalysts for Mr. Bragg’s decision to move forward with the bribes case -of-wine.
Judge Bragg’s trial puts what is an already tenuous struggle over the scope and limits of congressional oversight powers into new ground. House Republicans have argued that because the Manhattan case involves campaign finance, Congress must exercise direct oversight.
‘With information from Larry Neumeister in New York.