By MICHAEL R. SISAK and FARNOUSH AMIRI (Associated Press)
NEW YORK (AP) — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg sued Rep. Jim Jordan on Tuesday, a unprecedented transfer as he seeks to halt a House Judiciary Committee inquiry that the prosecutor contends is a “transparent campaign to intimidate and attack” him over his indictment of former President Donald Trump.
Bragg, a Democrat, is asking a choose to invalidate subpoenas that Jordan, the committee’s Republican chair, has issued or plans to challenge as a part of an investigation of Bragg’s dealing with of the case, the primary felony prosecution of a former U.S. president.
U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil, a Trump appointee who beforehand served as a federal chapter court docket choose, declined Tuesday to take rapid motion on the lawsuit. She scheduled an preliminary listening to for April 19 in Manhattan, the day earlier than the committee plans to query, beneath subpoena, a high former prosecutor who was concerned within the Trump probe.
Bragg’s lawsuit, a forceful escalation after weeks of sparring with Jordan and different Republican lawmakers in letters and media statements, seeks to finish what it says is a “constitutionally destructive fishing expedition” that threatens the sovereignty and integrity of a state-level prosecution.
“Congress lacks any valid legislative purpose to engage in a free-ranging campaign of harassment in retaliation for the District Attorney’s investigation and prosecution of Mr. Trump under the laws of New York,” the lawsuit says, citing the shortage of authority within the Constitution for Congress “to oversee, let alone disrupt, ongoing state law criminal matters.”
In response, Jordan tweeted Tuesday: “First, they indict a president for no crime. Then they sue to block congressional oversight when we ask questions about the federal funds they say they used to do it.”
The Judiciary Committee not too long ago issued a subpoena looking for testimony from a Mark Pomerantz, the previous prosecutor who beforehand oversaw the Trump investigation and sparred with Bragg over the path of the probe earlier than leaving the workplace final 12 months. Pomerantz, who has declined to cooperate with the committee, is beneath subpoena to testify at a deposition on April 20 until Vyskocil intervenes. The committee has additionally sought paperwork and testimony from the DA’s workplace however Bragg has rejected these requests.
The committee is scheduled to carry a listening to in Manhattan on Monday on crime in New York City and what it alleges are Bragg’s “pro-crime, anti-victim” insurance policies. The DA’s workplace, nevertheless, factors to statistics exhibiting that violent crime in Manhattan has dropped since Bragg took workplace in January 2022.
In response, Bragg mentioned that if Jordan, who’s from Ohio, “really cared about public safety,” he would journey to a few of the main cities in his residence state, the place crime is reportedly greater than in New York.
Bragg is represented within the lawsuit by Theodore Boutrous, a widely known First Amendment lawyer who has additionally represented Trump’s estranged niece, Mary Trump, in authorized clashes together with her well-known uncle.
Vyskocil beforehand made headlines when she dismissed a defamation lawsuit introduced in opposition to Fox News host Tucker Carlson by former Playboy mannequin Karen McDougal, who was paid $150,000 via the National Enquirer to maintain quiet about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump. In on-air remarks, Carlson referred to as the payoff “a classic case of extortion,” however Vyskocil dominated in 2020 that the conservative commentator was participating in “rhetorical hyperbole and opinion commentary” and that he was not “stating actual facts.”
In his lawsuit, Bragg mentioned he’s taking authorized motion “in response to an unprecedently brazen and unconstitutional attack by members of Congress on an ongoing New York State criminal prosecution and investigation of former President Donald J. Trump.”
Trump was indicted on March 30 with 34 felony counts of falsifying enterprise data associated to hush-money funds made in the course of the 2016 marketing campaign to bury allegations that he had extramarital sexual encounters. He has denied wrongdoing and pleaded not responsible at an arraignment final week in Manhattan.
Republicans have been railing in opposition to Bragg even earlier than Trump’s indictment, with Jordan main the trigger by issuing a sequence of letters and subpoenas to people concerned with the case. Pomerantz refused to voluntarily cooperate with the committee’s request final month on the instruction of Bragg’s workplace, citing the continued investigation.
Jordan sees Pomerantz and Carey Dunne, who have been high deputies tasked with working the investigation on a day-to-day foundation, as catalysts for Bragg’s choice to maneuver forward with the hush cash case.
Bragg’s lawsuit units up what’s an already tenuous battle over the scope and limits of congressional oversight powers into new territory. House Republicans have argued that as a result of the Manhattan case entails marketing campaign finance and what prosecutors say was a conspiracy to undermine the integrity of the 2016 election, Congress has direct oversight.
Many anticipated that Jordan would subpoena Bragg by now but it surely seems the forceful back-and-forth between the 2 elected officers has come to a head. Jordan’s committee has come exhausting at Bragg, however a court docket battle over a committee subpoena may impede its momentum and amplify criticism amongst Democrats that the panel is taking part in politics as an alternative of addressing substantive points.
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Amiri reported from Washington. Associated Press reporter Larry Neumeister in New York contributed to this report.
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On Twitter, observe Michael Sisak at twitter.com/mikesisak and Farnoush Amiri at twitter.com/FarnoushAmiri. Send confidential suggestions by visiting https://www.ap.org/tips/.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”