NEW YORK — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg threw down the legal gauntlet against House Republicans on Tuesday, accusing them of a “brazen and unconstitutional attack” on his office over its criminal indictment of ex-president Donald Trump.
Bragg made the charge in a Manhattan Federal Court lawsuit against Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan and the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee, which launched its inquiry into Bragg’s Trump investigation on March 20.
Jordan and his fellow Republicans on the Judiciary Committee have demanded Bragg grant them access to confidential court records and sought Bragg’s testimony about the Trump probe.
Bragg says that under the Constitution, the Judiciary Committee has no right to investigate his office’s probe of Trump’s hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.
“Chairman Jordan and the Committee are participating in a campaign of intimidation, retaliation, and obstruction. Mr. Trump in particular has threatened New York officials with violent and racist vitriol,” Bragg’s suit says.
“Chairman Jordan and the Committee have, in essence, appointed Congress as a super grand jury that can flex its subpoena power to second guess the judgment of New York citizens and interfere with the state criminal justice process,” reads an excerpt of the lawsuit.
Bragg and his office also named former Manhattan prosecutor Mark Pomerantz in the lawsuit. Bragg sought in vain to halt the release of Pomerantz’s book about the investigation that led to Trump’s indictment. Jordan’s committee cited Pomerantz’s book in its criticism of the investigation.
The suit seeks to halt the Judiciary Committee from enforcing a subpoena requiring Pomerantz to testify about the investigation on April 20.
The suit accuses Jordan and the Judiciary Committee of “a baseless pretext for hauling Mr. Pomerantz to Washington for a retaliatory political circus designed to undermine the rule of law and New York’s police power.”
The suit accuses Jordan and his congressional allies of changing their reasons for probing Bragg’s work “as it suits them,” leading to a “scattershot hodgepodge of new purported legislative interests and purposes” to justify the “unwarranted ‘incursion’” in a state criminal case.
Pomerantz was appointed to head the Manhattan DA’s Trump probe in early 2021 by Bragg’s predecessor Cyrus Vance, Jr. When Bragg took office, a rift emerged between the two men as their opinions about the fledgling case’s strength diverged, according to Pomerantz’s book and Daily News sources. The issues led Pomerantz to quit the probe.
Pomerantz’s book chronicling his work on the investigation, “People vs. Donald Trump,” divulged debates about how to charge Trump within the office and Bragg’s misgivings about the case’s now-star witness Michael Cohen.
A filing accompanying Bragg’s suit describes the subpoena as marking “the first time in our nation’s history that Congress has used its compulsory process to interfere with an ongoing state criminal case.”
Bragg’s office accused the GOP Judiciary Committee members of acting “at the behest of Mr. Trump’s lawyer” to “abet the campaign of obstruction and intimidation.”
The Manhattan Federal Court lawsuit comes a day after Jordan, a Republican and the House Judiciary Committee chairman, said the committee would hold a hearing next week at the Jacob Javits Federal Building in lower Manhattan to examine Bragg’s crime policies.
That hearing is not expected to be related to the Trump case.
Among the lawsuit’s references to Trump’s social media campaign against Bragg are screenshots of several Truth Social posts, including an article Trump posted featuring him holding a baseball bat next to a picture of Bragg’s head.
“These statements have had a powerful effect. District Attorney Bragg has received multiple death threats,” Bragg’s suit says, citing the white powder scare in the DA’s mail room on March 24.
“(Rather) than denounce efforts to vilify and denigrate the District Attorney and the grand jury process, House Republicans are participating in those efforts,” the suit reads.
The lawsuit says the office has received more than 1,000 calls and emails from Trump supporters since he wrongly predicted his arrest on March 15, among a mountain of racist hate mail first reported by the Daily News.
Theodore Boutrous, a lawyer representing Bragg’s office, said the GOP committee’s attempts to interfere in the case “have absolutely no legal basis.”
“The lawsuit we filed today aims to prevent this patently illegitimate abuse of Congress’ subpoena powers and to protect local law enforcement and state court criminal proceedings in this country against impermissible intrusions from the federal government,” Boutrous said.
In a statement, Bragg said his office “focuses on the law and the evidence, not political gamesmanship or threats.”
“We look forward to presenting our case in court to enjoin enforcement of the subpoena,” the DA said.
Jordan responded in an interview on Fox News Channel. “They’re obstructing our investigation,” he said. “We have a constitutional duty to get to the facts.”
He went on to accuse Bragg of “interfering” with the 2024 presidential campaign, “the most important election we have, which is the election of the commander in chief, the president of the United States.”
Jordan also said Trump had been indicted “for no crime.”
In a tweet posted after the lawsuit was filed, the Twitter account of the House Judiciary Committee Republicans said: “Why’s Alvin Bragg scared of congressional oversight? Really makes you wonder.”
The Republican Judiciary Committee account also linked to several news stories about New York City crime. Mayor Eric Adams responded to that criticism Tuesday by noting that NYPD data shows crime in the city is declining.
“This is not about public safety,” Adams said of the House GOP complaining about New York crime. “We are trending in the right direction. Their districts are trending in the wrong direction.”
Pomerantz did not respond to The News’ inquiries on Tuesday. Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina declined comment.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, which prosecutors say were part of a scheme to disguise a “hush money” payment to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The indictment says the payment violated state and federal laws.
Bragg’s lawsuit has been assigned to Manhattan Federal Court Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil. She denied a motion to issue a temporary restraining order on Bragg’s behalf and scheduled a hearing for April 19, a day before Pomerantz has been subpoenaed to testify before the committee.
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