Manhattan's top prosecutor sues to stop Republican 'intimidation' in Trump case

[April 12, 2023]  By Luc Cohen and Kanishka Singh

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on Tuesday sued Republican U.S. Representative Jim Jordan to stop what Bragg called a "campaign of intimidation" against the criminal prosecution of former President Donald Trump in New York.

The lawsuit aims to block a subpoena of Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor who once led the Manhattan district attorney's multi-year investigation of Trump, by the Republican-led House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, which Jordan chairs.

Bragg, a Democrat, called the subpoena an unconstitutional "incursion" into a state criminal case as payback for charging Trump in the first indictment of a former U.S. president.

"Rather than allowing the criminal process to proceed in the ordinary course, Chairman Jordan and the committee are participating in a campaign of intimidation, retaliation and obstruction," Bragg's lawyers wrote in the complaint, filed in federal court in Manhattan.

Later on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil set a hearing in the case for April 19. She gave Jordan until April 17 to respond to Bragg's complaint.

Last week, Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony charges of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment to buy porn star Stormy Daniels' silence before the 2016 election about her alleged affair with him, which he denies.

Many Republicans have portrayed Bragg's prosecution as a politically-motivated stunt to interfere in the 2024 presidential election, where Trump is seeking another White House term.

They have also questioned the district attorney's use of federal funds for its investigation of Trump.

"First, they indict a president for no crime," Jordan tweeted on Tuesday. "Then, they sue to block congressional oversight when we ask questions about the federal funds they say they used to do it."

Bragg's office has told the committee it used $5,000 in federal funds to investigate Trump and his namesake family company from 2019 to 2021.

The office said that money came from $1 billion of asset forfeiture it secured for the government in the last 15 years.

Bragg, the first Black district attorney in Manhattan, has also accused Trump of threatening New York officials with "violent and racist vitriol."

New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks after former U.S. President Donald Trump appeared at Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, after his indictment by a Manhattan grand jury following a probe into hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels, in New York City, U.S., April 4, 2023. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

He cited a since-deleted picture that Trump posted on social media showing him holding a baseball bat next to a photo of Bragg's head, and another post in which Trump called Bragg an "animal."

The complaint said those statements had a "powerful effect," adding that Bragg has received death threats from Trump supporters and a package containing suspicious white powder.

Lawyers for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

'SOVEREIGN AUTHORITY'

Pomerantz left the District Attorney's office shortly after Bragg took over in early 2022 and decided against pursuing an indictment of Trump over his business practices.

Earlier this year, Pomerantz published a book criticizing that decision.

He also said prosecutors had examined whether to charge Trump over hush money payments, but were concerned their novel legal theory might not hold up in court.

Though Bragg has said Pomerantz's case was not ready, Jordan has said Pomerantz's public statements showed that politics motivated Bragg's eventual prosecution of Trump.

In a court filing, lawyers for Bragg said there would be no harm to House Republicans from blocking the subpoena because Congress has no jurisdiction over state prosecutions.

He also said that if the Republicans do not like his case against Trump they can express their displeasure to voters.

Not letting the case proceed toward a possible jury trial would "undermine the interests of justice and irreparably injure New York's sovereign authority," Bragg's office wrote.

The Judiciary Committee said on Monday it planned a "field hearing" next week in New York about "an increase in violent crime" they claim has been caused by Bragg's policies.

Bragg said murders, shootings, burglaries and robberies in Manhattan are lower this year than in 2022.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York and Kanishka Singh in Washington; additional reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York editing by Leslie Adler and Bill Berkrot)

[© 2023 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.  Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.