Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) sued House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) Tuesday, calling his investigation into Bragg’s prosecution of former President Trump a “transparent campaign to intimidate and attack” his office’s work.
The suit, filed in federal court in New York, is the most aggressive pushback yet from Bragg in response to Jordan, who in recent days subpoenaed a former prosecutor who worked on the Trump investigation and last week asked another employee to turn over personal emails about his hiring process.
“Congress has no power to supervise state criminal prosecutions. Nor does Congress have the power to serve subpoenas ‘for the personal aggrandizement of the investigators or to punish those investigated,’” Bragg’s office writes in the suit, pointing to a case initiated by Trump that ultimately limited Congress’s subpoena power.
Bragg has also resisted efforts from Jordan to secure his testimony, arguing in prior letters that Jordan’s requests would violate the rights of those involved in the process, including Trump himself.
“The charges the District Attorney filed against Mr. Trump were approved by citizens of New York,” the suit states.
“Rather than allowing the criminal process to proceed in the ordinary course, Chairman Jordan and the Committee are participating in a campaign of intimidation, retaliation, and obstruction.”
The suit earned a swift response from U.S. District Court Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil, who declined to immediately block Jordan’s subpoena but gave the committee just short of a week to respond in court.
Jordan started his own review of Bragg’s investigation just days after Trump predicted he would be arrested in connection with the probe and called on his supporters to protest.
Bragg filed an indictment of Trump last week, charging him with 34 felony counts of misclassification of business records, a charge elevated due to alleged efforts to conceal the payments to aid Trump’s 2016 election prospects.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks at a press conference after the arraignment of former president Donald Trump in New York on Tuesday, April 4, 2023. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
Bragg has yet to be subpoenaed by Jordan. But Jordan did subpoena Mark Pomerantz, who resigned from the Trump investigation about a year ago over disagreements with Bragg over the Trump case.
In a resignation letter published by the New York Times, Pomerantz wrote that Bragg’s reluctance to pursue charges against Trump was “misguided and completely contrary to the public interest.”
The suit seeks an injunction to block the subpoena of Pomerantz as well as any future subpoena issued to Bragg or others in his office.
It also notes that any subpoena would violate laws surrounding grand jury secrecy and privilege.
Jordan fired back on Twitter shortly after the suit was filed.
“First, they indict a president for no crime,” he wrote. “Then, they sue to block congressional oversight when we ask questions about the federal funds they say they used to do it.”
The suit spends also considerable time analyzing whether Jordan’s work could serve a legitimate legislative purpose – one of the requirements for backing such a subpoena.
Jordan has argued his panel must be able to review the federal funding Bragg’s office receives. The office used $5,000 in federal funding to investigate Trump prior to Bragg’s arrival, but his office says none has been used since he took the post in January of last year.
Jordan has also argued in his subpoena to Pomerantz his review is needed to “inform the consideration of potential legislative reforms that would, if enacted, insulate current and former Presidents from such politically motivated state and local prosecutions.”
In the suit, Bragg dismissed that augment and noted that it is up to Trump’s legal team to raise in court the issue of whether his prosecution was improperly motivated.
“Subpoenaing a former line prosecutor to talk about an ongoing criminal prosecution and investigation is no less of an affront to state sovereignty than subpoenaing the District Attorney himself. Chairman Jordan claims he is seeking to conduct ‘oversight.’ But he has no power under the Constitution to oversee state and local criminal matters,” he wrote.
“By definition, then, he has no legitimate legislative purpose for issuing this subpoena.”
The suit also reviews numerous social media posts by Trump in relation to the probe, including one in which the former president posted a picture of himself holding a baseball bat side-by-side with a photo of Bragg. The filing notes the post was followed by death threats to Bragg and “a package containing suspicious white powder with a note making a specific death threat against him.”
Bragg filed his lawsuit one day after the House Judiciary Committee, led by Jordan, announced that it will hold a hearing in Manhattan next week on violent crime in the city.
The panel targeted Bragg in its advisory, writing that the hearing — titled “Victims of Violent Crime in Manhattan” — will examine how Bragg’s “pro-crime, anti-victim policies have led to an increase in violent crime and a dangerous community for New York City residents.”
In an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity Monday night, Jordan said the committee will be talking to victims of crime in the city.
“We’re coming up there to talk to the victims, the people who’ve been impacted by this crazy, left-wing ideology that says we’re not gonna put bad guys, people who do harmful things to other Americans, we’re not gonna put them in jail and then bad things happen,” Jordan said. “We’re gonna talk to those families.”
He also noted that the Judiciary Committee is planning to travel to other cities to look into crime. He said Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), the chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance, “wants to go to other cities and do this same thing.”
“But it is that critical because Alvin Bragg as you know is going after President Trump when you have all kinds of things happening in his town that are harmful to families who live there,” Jordan added.
Mychael Schnell contributed. Updated at 5:26 p.m.