
(DCWatchdog.com) – Manhattan’s Democrat District Attorney Alvin Bragg launched a lawsuit against the US House Judiciary Committee and its GOP chair, US Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), to stop the panel from subpoenaing a former prosecutor who investigated former President Donald Trump.
Bragg filed the suit on Tuesday after last week Jordan subpoenaed former New York City Special District Attorney Mark Pomerantz, The Daily Caller reported.
Jordan accused Pomerantz of “politicizing” the probe and encouraging Bragg to indict Trump.
The subpoena, which invited the former prosecutor to sit for a deposition on April 20, declared that Pomerantz’s “public statements about the investigation strongly suggest that Bragg’s prosecution of President Trump is politically motivated.”
In a development unprecedented in US history, the former president was arraigned last week on 34 financial crime charges at Bragg’s initiative.
In his filing, Manhattan’s DA called Jordan’s subpoena an “unprecedently brazen and unconstitutional attack” on Trump’s trial.
Bragg asked the court to stop the enforcement of Pomerantz’s subpoena and invalidate any future House Judiciary Committee subpoenas to himself.
“Chairman Jordan’s demands, including his subpoena to Mr. Pomerantz, seek highly sensitive and confidential local prosecutorial information that belongs to the Office of the District Attorney and the People of New York. Basic principles of federalism and common sense, as well as binding Supreme Court precedent, forbid Congress from demanding it,” the lawsuit reads, as cited by The New York Post.
“Chairman Jordan’s subpoena is an unconstitutional attempt to undermine an ongoing New York felony criminal prosecution and investigation. As our complaint details, this is an unprecedented, illegitimate interference by Congress that lacks any legal merit and defies basic principles of federalism,” Bragg argued in a separate statement.
His lawsuit also said that Jordan and former President Trump’s description of Bragg as a DA bankrolled by far-left, progressivist financier George Soros is “threatening,” The National Review reported.
“Members of Congress are not free to invade New York’s sovereign authority for their or Mr. Trump’s political aims. Congress has no authority to ‘conduct oversight’ into District
Attorney Bragg’s exercise of his duties under New York law in a single case involving a single
defendant. Nor can Congress force a former prosecutor to make extrajudicial statements during a
criminal prosecution about that prosecution or related criminal investigations,” Bragg’s lawsuit states further.
US House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan reacted to the lawsuit on Tuesday evening by calling it an “obstructing our investigation.”
“We have a constitutional duty to get to the facts, particularly when you have a district attorney interfering with the most important election we have, which is the election of the commander-in-chief, the president of the United States,” Jordan told Fox News.
“Alvin Bragg used federal funds to indict a former president for no crime, and then when we ask questions about it when we want to investigate, he takes us to court,” the Ohio Republican added.
“And he takes us to court because we want to talk to someone who left the DA’s office a year ago, who went out and wrote a book on this very subject, did all kinds of interviews, was pushing to go after President Trump before he got there, while he got there, when he left. He wrote a book about it, and we’re not allowed to talk to him, to do our duty. They’re obstructing our constitutional duty to do oversight,” Jordan elaborated.
Manhattan DA Bragg sues Jim Jordan, Judiciary panel over Pomerantz subpoena https://t.co/h8URHgnmsP pic.twitter.com/h3e3iG9euF
— New York Post (@nypost) April 11, 2023