House Republicans subpoena former prosecutor in Trump case

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This article was published 06/04/2023 (982 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans on Thursday subpoenaed one of the former Manhattan prosecutors who had been leading a criminal investigation into Donald Trump before quitting last year in a clash over the direction of the probe.

Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, ordered Mark Pomerantz to testify before the committee by April 30. The subpoena, reviewed by The Associated Press, is the latest escalation by Republicans as they probe Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, days after Trump was charged in a 34-count felony indictment in connection with a hush-money scheme involving a porn actor.

Pomerantz refused to voluntarily cooperate with the committee’s request last month at the instruction of Bragg’s office, citing the ongoing investigation. The Manhattan D.A.’s office has accused Jordan’s committee of overstepping its legal authority and infringing on New York state sovereignty.

Jordan has now written in a letter to Pomerantz, “Based on your unique role as a special assistant district attorney leading the investigation into President Trump’s finances, you are uniquely situated to provide information that is relevant and necessary to inform the Committee’s oversight and potential legislative reforms.”

A request for comment from Pomerantz was not immediately returned.

Bragg called the subpoena another example of a Republican “attempt to undermine an active investigation and ongoing New York criminal case.”

“Repeated efforts to weaken state and local law enforcement actions are an abuse of power and will not deter us from our duty to uphold the law,” Bragg wrote in a tweet.

Republicans had rallied around Trump in the leadup to his indictment Tuesday, labeling Bragg’s investigation a “political persecution.” Jordan and other senior GOP lawmakers see Pomerantz and Carey Dunne, who were top deputies tasked with running the investigation on a day-to-day basis, as catalysts for Bragg’s decision to move ahead with the hush money case.

Both men started on the probe under former District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., and Bragg asked them to stay when he took office in January. Both Vance and Bragg are Democrats.

The Trump indictment centers on allegations that he falsified internal business records at his private company while trying to cover up an effort to illegally influence the 2016 election by arranging payments that silenced claims potentially harmful to his candidacy. It includes 34 counts of falsifying records related to checks Trump sent to his personal lawyer and problem-solver to reimburse him for his role in paying off a porn actor who said she had an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump years earlier.

Pomerantz released a book earlier this year titled “People vs. Donald Trump: An Inside Account.” In the book, he said that Vance authorized him in December 2021 to seek Trump’s indictment. He has portrayed the hush-money payments — made or arranged by Cohen — as perhaps the most challenging and legally fraught of the potential cases against the former president.

Jordan wrote Thursday that Pomerantz should be allowed to cooperate since he has “already discussed many of the topics relevant to our oversight” in the book he published and promoted. He goes on to say that Pomerantz’s own book details how the case looking into “Trump appears to have been politically motivated.”

“Specifically, you describe your eagerness to investigate President Trump, writing that you were ‘delighted’ to join an unpaid group of lawyers advising on the Trump investigations, and joking that salary negotiations had gone ‘great’ because you would have paid to join the investigation,” the Jordan letter continued.

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Associated Press writer Michael R. Sisak in New York contributed to this report.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of former President Donald Trump at https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump.