NY.- Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg sued Republican Rep. Jim Jordan on Tuesday, an extraordinary move at a time when he is trying to stop an investigation by the House Judiciary Committee that the prosecutor alleges is a “campaign to intimidate and attack him” for indicting former President Donald Trump.
Bragg, a Democrat, asked the judge to invalidate subpoenas that Jordan, the commission’s chairman, has issued or plans to issue in an investigation into Bragg’s handling of the Trump case, the first criminal prosecution against a former US president.
U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil, a Trump appointee and former federal bankruptcy court judge, on Tuesday refused to take immediate action on the lawsuit. She scheduled an initial hearing for April 19 in Manhattan, a day before the commission is to question, under a subpoena, a former high-ranking prosecutor who was involved in the Trump investigation.
Bragg’s lawsuit, a clampdown on weeks of clashing with Jordan and other Republican lawmakers in letters and press releases, seeks to end what he says is a “constitutionally destructive information-gathering attempt” that threatens the sovereignty and integrity of lawsuits at the state level.
“Congress lacks a valid legislative purpose to engage in a campaign of free-ranging harassment in retaliation for the district attorney’s investigation and prosecution of Mr. Trump under New York law,” the lawsuit states, citing the failure to of authority in the Constitution for Congress to “supervise, let alone disrupt, ongoing state law criminal matters.”
In response, Jordan tweeted on Tuesday:
“First, they indict a President for no crime. Then they sue to block congressional oversight when we ask them about the federal funds they say they used to do it.”
The Judiciary Committee recently issued a subpoena for Mark Pomerantz, the former prosecutor who previously oversaw the Trump investigation and fell out with Bragg over the direction the investigation was taking before leaving office last year. Pomerantz, who has refused to cooperate with the commission, is under subpoena to testify in a deposition on April 20 unless Vyskocil intervenes. The commission has also requested documents and testimony from the prosecution, but Bragg has denied those requests.
The commission is scheduled to hold a hearing in Manhattan on Monday on crime in New York City and what it alleges are Bragg’s “pro-crime, anti-victim” policies. The prosecution, however, notes statistics showing violent crime in Manhattan has declined since Bragg took office in January 2022.
In response, Bragg said that if Jordan, who is from Ohio, “really cared about public safety,” he would travel to some of the biggest cities in his home state, where apparently the crime level is higher than New York. .
Bragg is represented in the lawsuit by Theodore Boutrous, a well-known attorney who has also represented Trump’s niece Mary in legal battles with her famous uncle.
Trump was indicted March 30 on 34 counts of falsifying accounting records related to payments to quell allegations that he engaged in extramarital sex during his 2016 campaign. He has denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty at an arraignment hearing. Last week in Manhattan.
