A former prosecutor who worked for the Manhattan District Attorney’s office must appear for a deposition before the House Judiciary Committee following a ruling from a New York judge.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has resisted the deposition of Mark Pomerantz, saying the request is an attempt by House Republicans to interfere with his investigation into President Donald Trump.
U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil ruled the Committee had a lawful and proper justification for the subpoena it issued to Pomerantz.
“The subpoena was issued with a ‘valid legislative purpose’ in connection with the ‘broad’ and ‘indispensable’ congressional power to ‘conduct investigations,'” wrote Vyskocil, per NBC News. “Mr. Pomerantz must appear for the congressional deposition. No one is above the law.”
Vyskocil was nominated in 2018 by Trump and serves on the District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio is the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. He subpoenaed Pomerantz in early April after the former special district attorney refused to voluntarily cooperate with the committee’s probe into the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. Pomerantz worked for the office from 2021 and early 2022 and had told the Committee the New York County District Attorney’s Office had instructed him not to cooperate.
“The New York County District Attorney’s unprecedented prosecutorial conduct requires oversight to inform the consideration of potential legislative reforms that would, if enacted, insulate current and former Presidents from such politically motivated state and local prosecutions,” wrote Jordan in a letter to Pomerantz dated April 6. “The local prosecution of a former President also raises the potential for conflict between the federal law-enforcement officials required by federal law to protect a former President and local law-enforcement officials required to enforce an indictment and exercise control of him throughout his presence in the local criminal justice system.”
“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,” the congressman added. Jordan pointed out that Pomerantz had published a book in February 2023 where he discussed “many of the topics relevant to our oversight.”
“As a result, you have no basis to decline to testify about matters before the Committee that you have already discussed in your book and/or on a prime-time television program with an audience in the millions, including on the basis of any purported duty of confidentiality or privilege interest,” wrote Jordan.
Bragg filed a 50-page lawsuit against Jordan on April 11, requesting Vyskocil block the subpoena. Bragg said Jordan and other members of the committee had launched an “unprecedently brazen and unconstitutional attack” on his office as part of a “transparent campaign to intimidate” him because of his investigation into Trump.
“Basic principles of federalism and common sense, as well as binding Supreme Court precedent, forbid Congress from demanding it,” stated the complaint. “Congress has no power to supervise state criminal prosecutions. Nor does Congress have the power to serve subpoenas ‘for the personal aggrandizement of the investigators or to punish those investigated.’”
