Ex-Manhattan district attorney refuses to answer questions about Trump indictment before Jordan committee
Jerry Dunleavy
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A former Manhattan district attorney’s office prosecutor refused to answer questions about Alvin Bragg’s 34-count felony indictment of former President Donald Trump after he was subpoenaed to appear by House Republicans.
Mark Pomerantz, who resigned from the prosecutor’s office in February 2022 after District Attorney Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus Vance, didn’t pursue the charges that were then finally filed earlier this year by Bragg, declined to answer any questions about the Trump investigation on Friday.
“I am here because I respect the rule of law,” Pomerantz said behind closed doors in front of the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee. “What I do not respect is the committee’s use of subpoena power to compel me to participate in an act of political theater.”
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, had asked for Pomerantz’s voluntary cooperation in late March, but Pomerantz declined to do so at the direction of Bragg.
Jordan followed up with a subpoena in early April, calling on Pomerantz to appear for a deposition, noting that Pomerantz “led the investigation” into Trump’s finances “before resigning in protest” after Bragg’s “initial reluctance to move forward with charges” against the former president.
“Pomerantz’s public statements about the investigation strongly suggest that Bragg’s prosecution of President Trump is politically motivated,” Jordan contended last month, in part a reference to Pomerantz’s book, People vs. Donald Trump.
Trump and Bragg faced off in court in early April as details about the unprecedented indictment of a former president finally came to light. The charges relate to a $130,000 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election.
Trump and his legal team traveled to New York City in early April for his arraignment on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records, before which he was processed into the system. Trump has pleaded not guilty, denied any wrongdoing, and decried Bragg’s prosecution as a political witch hunt.
Bragg told reporters after the arraignment that his office obtained new evidence to justify bringing the years-old case against Trump.
Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus Vance, had worked on the investigation without ever bringing charges. Federal investigators, too, had examined the circumstances around Trump’s 2016 payment to Stormy Daniels, who claimed to have had an affair with him, and decided against pursuing an indictment.
Pomerantz said Friday that he wouldn’t answer any questions about how the indictment came to be.
“Fortunately, I do not have to cooperate with the cynical histrionics that this deposition represents,” the former Manhattan prosecutor said. “I have been instructed by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office that I should maintain the Office’s claims of privilege and confidentiality in order to protect the impending prosecution and continuing investigation of Donald Trump. I intend to honor the District Attorney’s request, and I will not answer questions to which the District Attorney objects.”
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) told reporters Friday that Pomerantz “has answered no questions” and characterized the uncooperative witness as “taking the Fifth.”
“I’ve never had a more obstructive and less cooperative witness in my over twenty years in Congress,” Issa said.
Pomerantz and Bragg had sought to fight Jordan’s subpoena last month. Southern District of New York Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil ultimately ruled that the GOP subpoena was valid.
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“In our federalist system, elected state and federal actors sometimes engage in political dogfights,” Vyskocil ruled. “Bragg complains of political interference in the local DANY case, but Bragg does not operate outside of the political arena.”
The judge added, “The Court does not endorse either side’s agenda. The sole question before the Court at this time is whether Bragg has a legal basis to quash a congressional subpoena that was issued with a valid legislative purpose. He does not.”