NEW YORK — A federal judge shot down a request by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Wednesday to halt House Republicans from questioning a former prosecutor about his office’s investigation into ex-President Donald Trump.
Manhattan Federal Court Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil’s written decision came less than two hours after she heard arguments in a tense hearing, with the DA’s legal team seeking to persuade her to bar the GOP Judiciary Committee led by Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan from enforcing a subpoena on Mark Pomerantz in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. Bragg sued the committee last week, alleging their inquiry into his Trump case represented a “brazen and unconstitutional attack.”
The Trump-appointed judge found Bragg has no “legal basis to quash a congressional subpoena that was issued with a valid legislative purpose.”
“Bragg complains of political interference in the local DANY case, but Bragg does not operate outside of the political arena. Bragg ... is an elected prosecutor in New York County with constituents, some of whom wish to see Bragg wield the force of law against the former President and a current candidate for the Republican presidential nomination,” the judge wrote.
“Jordan, in turn, has initiated a political response to what he and some of his constituents view as a manifest abuse of power and nakedly political prosecution, funded (in part) with federal money, that has the potential to interfere with the exercise of presidential duties and with an upcoming federal election,” she added.
The committee on Thursday will grill Pomerantz, who controversially published a book about the confidential probe that led to Trump’s recent indictment when he quit on bad terms after Bragg took over as DA.
“Mr. Pomerantz must appear for the congressional deposition. No one is above the law,” Vyskocil wrote.
The subpoena is part of an all-out offensive Trump-backing lawmakers have launched on Bragg’s felony case against the former president, which accuses him of falsifying business records to conceal a well-documented scheme to bury bad press ahead of his 2016 election as president.
On Monday, the committee held a “field hearing” in lower Manhattan that devolved into a circus seeking to put Bragg’s policies on blast.
Vyskocil pushed back hard during arguments from Bragg lawyer Ted Boutrous in court, frequently interrupting his statements with skepticism while holding a copy of Pomerantz’s tell-all memoir “People vs. Donald Trump: An Inside Account.”
The judge questioned how Bragg’s office could argue that Pomerantz’s answers under oath could irreparably harm the DA’s case when he’d spilled everything in his book and multiple national television interviews.
“It’s hard to avoid, isn’t it, Mr. Boutrous?” the judge said of the book.
“Tell me, Mr. Boutrous, how does this book — which is chock full of what Mr. Pomerantz calls an ‘insider account’ — how does it not disclose mental impressions, deliberations of the office, the internal workings of the district attorney’s office, how is there not a waiver?” she continued.
Boutrous said the lawmakers were improperly “haranguing” the DA and that the subpoena presented a clear violation of separation of powers laws, with Congress trying to invade the executive branch of New York by seeking to “hold (Bragg) to account” in an active criminal case.
The Republicans say they are examining whether legislation is needed to address a problem in America with “politically motivated prosecutions of former presidents” involving federal funds.
Bragg contends his predecessor Cy Vance spent about $5,000 in federal funds on expenses involved in a separate Trump-involved probe. However, DA lawyers say no federal dollars were spent on the investigation that led to the former president’s recent indictment. By contrast, they said the office had sent the feds at least $1 billion in forfeiture funds over the last 15 years.
Bragg, in January attempted to delay the February release of Pomerantz’s book in vain, with the publisher Simon & Schuster declining to let the office conduct a “prepublication review” to ensure there was nothing in it that could harm the case that Bragg would bring just a couple months later.
Upon its release, Pomerantz went on a media blitz, discussing the book revealing Bragg’s hesitations in trusting the case’s now-star witness Michael Cohen and internal debates about proving Trump’s criminal intent, among other confidential details.
GOP lawyer Matthew Berry argued that ruling against the Republicans’ efforts would suggest “the House Judiciary Committee ranks below ‘60 Minutes.’”
The DA’s general counsel Leslie Dubeck argued that Pomerantz went rogue in making the disclosures and didn’t have the authority to waive prosecutorial privilege, as GOP lawyers have contended. She said Pomerantz faces potential criminal consequences for the ink spilled and that he’d be exposed to deeper liability if he complies with a subpoena from the committee and reveals more details.
The GOP committee says Pomerantz faces contempt of Congress if he doesn’t testify.
“There’s politics going on here on both sides here,” Judge Vyskocil said in court. “Let’s be honest about that.”
Trump, 76, has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts alleging he falsified paperwork to disguise an illicit “hush money” payment to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election to buy her silence about an alleged extramarital encounter in 2006.
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