House Republicans escalated their investigation into the Manhattan district attorney’s office responsible for charging former president Donald Trump by subpoenaing a prosecutor who resigned from the office last year over the investigation.
The House Judiciary Committee ordered Mark Pomerantz, who resigned from Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s office in February 2022, to appear before the committee on April 20. Chairman Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) wrote in the letter accompanying the subpoena that "Congress has a specific and manifestly important interest in preventing politically motivated prosecutions of current and former Presidents."
"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," Jordan said in the letter.
The subpoena intensifies House Republicans’ vows to investigate Bragg. It’s the first concrete step in seeking answers on the investigation, which Republicans are calling politically motivated.
Bragg on Thursday called the House investigation an "unprecedented campaign of harassment and intimidation," adding that Republicans are trying to "weaken" local and state law enforcement. He said Congress shouldn't be "intruding" on New York's "sovereignty."
Pomerantz left the office shortly after Bragg took the reigns, citing Bragg’s decision to "indefinitely suspend" the investigation into Trump, whom Pomerantz felt was guilty.
"I believe that Donald Trump is guilty of numerous felony violations," Pomerantz wrote last year in his resignation letter. "The team that has been investigating Mr. Trump harbors no doubt about whether he committed crimes—he did."
He added that he was quitting because ignoring the Trump investigation was a "grave failure of justice."
Jordan pointed to Pomerantz’s pressure as a reason Bragg went forward with the investigation, and eventual arrest, of Trump.
Trump was arraigned in a New York City courthouse on Tuesday, where he was charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records surrounding hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Republicans and some in the media are criticizing Bragg for the charges, which Vox called "painfully anticlimactic."