Days after demanding testimony from Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, House Judiciary chairman Jim Jordan (R., Oh.) is expanding his committee’s oversight into what he calls a “politically motivated prosecutorial decision” to indict former President Trump in connection with a hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels.
On Wednesday, Jordan sent letters demanding testimony to Carey Dunne and Mark Pomerantz, Bragg’s ex-colleagues at the Manhattan DA’s office who resigned in protest after Bragg initially expressed doubts about prosecuting Trump, suspending the investigation. Dunne and Pomerantz were tasked with leading the investigation into every aspect of Trump’s finances.
“Your unrelenting pursuit of President Trump has followed you into the private sector. Following your resignation from Bragg’s office, you and Pomerantz started a law firm dedicated to ‘weighing ways’ to bar President Trump from holding future office,” Jordan wrote to Dunne.
Jordan also pointed to Pomerantz’s recent book “excoriating Bragg for not aggressively prosecuting President Trump.” He added that Bragg had been deeply stung by the criticism from the pair.
The House Judiciary chairman is accusing the Manhattan ex-prosecutors of shaming Bragg into bringing the indictment now. According to him, the facts of the case have not changed since previous prosecutors declined to bring charges and Cohen’s credibility remains shot.
“The only intervening factor, it appears, was President Trump’s announcement that he would be a candidate for President in 2024,” Jordan wrote.
“Your actions, both as a special prosecutor and since leaving the District Attorney’s office, cast serious doubt on the administration of fair and impartial justice in this matter. Your words in the New York Times have unfairly disparaged President Trump, an innocent and uncharged man, as a felon to millions of Times readers. Your book again unfairly disparaged President Trump, and now opens the door to examination about the District Attorney’s office commitment to evenhanded justice,” the congressman wrote to Pomerantz.
Questions have been raised about Jordan and his colleagues intervening in a local prosecution, but to the congressman from Ohio, Congress has a keen interest in increasing oversight on Bragg’s office because it will inform potential legislation to reform the criminal-justice system and to better delineate prosecutorial authority between federal and local officials. Because the circumstances in this case may also stem from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russia, Jordan said Congress may consider legislative reforms to the authorities of special counsels.
The letters to the two prosecutors follows a letter demanding testimony from Bragg himself earlier this week.
“If these reports are accurate, your [prosecution] will erode confidence in the evenhanded application of justice and unalterably interfere in the course of the 2024 presidential election,” Jordan and two of his fellow chairman wrote to Bragg.
Last Saturday, the Manhattan DA responded internally to the increased pressure on his office. He said in a memo to staff obtained by Politico: “We do not tolerate attempts to intimidate our office or threaten the rule of law in New York.”
Trump claimed he would be arrested this week, but that has not come to pass yet. The grand jury did not meet Wednesday, further delaying the impending indictment.