WASHINGTON (CN) — The House Judiciary Committee served a subpoena Thursday to the lawyer who was once at the head of the investigation that finally brought criminal charges this week against former President Donald Trump.
Mark Pomerantz stepped away from the investigation in February 2022, at the time expressing frustration with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who had just taken over the office from Cyrus Vance Jr. and appeared to be hesitating on the future of the investigation.
As a special assistant district attorney in the New York County District Attorney’s Office, Pomerantz oversaw the long-running probe of Trump's involvement in hush-money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels among others.
Bragg unsealed the fruit of that investigation just this past Tuesday: 38 criminal charges against the former president.
In the Republican-led lower chamber, meanwhile, a competing investigation has been underway into that indictment. Pomerantz has refused to voluntarily appear before the committee, but Chairman Jim Jordan says the lawyer no longer has any choice in the matter.
“You are uniquely situated to provide information that is relevant and necessary to inform the Committee’s oversight and potential legislative reforms,” Jordan wrote in a letter to Pomerantz.
Jordan waved off the prosecutor's argument that the district attorney’s office has directed him not to testify before Congress, noting that Pomerantz already publicly laid bare many of details of the Trump investigation in his February book titled “People vs. Donald Trump: An Inside Account.”
“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,” the Ohio Republican wrote.
Jordan, alongside his GOP colleagues, has framed the indictment of Trump in New York as a partisan ploy. In his Thursday letter to Pomerantz, he sought to paint the prosecutor in a similar light, accusing him of searching for any basis to bring charges against the former president.
As examples of the former prosecutor’s alleged bias, the lawmaker pointed to sections of Pomerantz’s book in which he criticizes members of the District Attorney’s Office for expressing skepticism about the investigation and compares Trump to mob boss John Gotti.
“These perceptions appear to have colored your work as a special assistant district attorney, to the point that you even resigned because the investigation into President Trump was not proceeding fast enough for your liking,” Jordan argued.
The legal committee chair gave Pomerantz until April 30 to respond to the subpoena.
Congressional Republicans have circled the wagons around Trump since his indictment was announced last week. Jordan himself expressed his frustrations, calling the move outrageous in a one-word tweet March 30. Other lawmakers, such as Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, traveled to New York on Tuesday to support the former president as he surrendered to authorities and was arraigned.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all 34 criminal charges.
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