Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg sued Republican Congressman Jim Jordan on Tuesday to end a “fear campaign” that Bragg believes Jordan is waging against him over the lawsuit against former President Donald Trump.
The lawsuit is also being filed against the Jordanian-led House Judiciary Committee and against Mark Pomeranz, a former district attorney who himself led the Trump investigation.
Bragg said issuing him a subpoena ordering the prosecutor to testify in Congress is an “unconstitutional intrusion” into the criminal case against Trump, which is being investigated by New York State. Additionally, Bragg believes Republicans are “getting revenge” for the first time in US history that criminal charges have been brought against a former president.
“Instead of letting the criminal process proceed as usual, Chairman Jordan and the Committee have engaged in a campaign of intimidation, revenge, and filibuster,” Bragg’s attorneys wrote in a filed lawsuit. in Manhattan federal court.
Later Tuesday, Manhattan County Judge Mary Kay Wiskochil scheduled a hearing in the case for April 19. She gave Jordan until April 17 to respond to Bragg’s lawsuit.
Trump pleaded not guilty last week to 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 payment to silence porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election over his alleged affair with the former president.
Many Republicans say the Bragg Process is political and interference in the 2024 presidential election, in which Trump is set to run for president again.
Members of Congress will also investigate the district attorney’s use of federal funds to stage a trial against Trump.
“They first filed a complaint against a president who did not commit a crime,” Jordan tweeted on Tuesday. “Now they’re suing to block congressional oversight that questioned federal funds used for (the Trump investigation)”
Bragg’s office told the committee that $5,000 in federal funding was used to investigate Donald Trump and his Trump Organization.
The office said the money came from a budget that received about $1 billion over the past 15 years through the confiscation of various assets carried out by prosecutors.
Bragg, Manhattan’s first black prosecutor, also accused Trump of allegedly threatening a city attorney by speaking to him in a “violent, racist and vicious” tone.
At the same time, the prosecutor referred to a photograph removed from social media, in which Trump was holding a baseball bat next to a photograph of Bragg, as well as to the post of the former president, in which he called the Manhattan district attorney an “animal.”
The lawsuit claims that these statements had a “powerful effect”. Bragg said Trump supporters threatened to kill him. In addition, unknown persons sent him a letter with a “suspicious” white powder in the mail.
Pomeranz left the prosecutor’s office shortly after Bragg took office in early 2022 and decided not to press charges against Trump for his business practices.
In 2023, Pomeranz published a book criticizing Bragg’s decision. He said prosecutors feared Bragg’s “new theory of law” would stand up to court scrutiny.
At the same time, Bragg said Pomeranz did not bring criminal charges against Trump solely because the matter was not thoroughly investigated. According to Jordan, the Pomeranets’ public confession points to possible political reasons for the investigation against the ex-president.
Bragg’s attorneys said the subpoena would not hurt Republicans because Congress does not have jurisdiction over state-level criminal trials. Additionally, the lawsuit says that if Republicans don’t like Bragg’s case against Trump, they can voice their displeasure with voters.
If the case does not go to trial by jury, it will “undermine the interests of justice and cause irreparable harm to the sovereign authority of New York City,” Bragg’s office said.
The Legal Committee will hold an on-the-ground hearing next week in New York. They will focus on the increase in violent crime seen in the city, according to members of Congress, in connection with the policies carried out by Bragg’s office.
Bragg says the number of murders, shootings, burglaries and robberies in Manhattan are down this year compared to 2022.
Read the latest news about the Ukraine conflict on The Eastern Herald .
