Why has Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg sued US Rep. Jim Jordan?
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg sued Rep. Jim Jordan to block his alleged “interference” and “obstruction” of the ongoing criminal prosecution Donald Trump.
On Tuesday, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg sued Republican US Representative Jim Jordan from Ohio. The lawsuit in federal court is attempting to block the congressman’s alleged “interference” and “obstruction” of the ongoing criminal prosecution of former President Donald Trump in New York.
Specifically, Bragg is seeking to bar Jordan and his GOP colleagues from enforcing a subpoena given to Mark Pomerantz to testify before Congress. Pomerantz, who resigned from the district attorney’s office last year after Bragg took over and initially decided against seeking an indictment of the former president at that time, later wrote a book about his own criminal investigation into Trump.
Alvin Bragg says that Jim Jordan and Congress overstepped their authority
Bragg unsealed 34 felony criminal charges against Trump last week for a series of hush money payments in 2016 to conceal alleged past infidelities of the then presidential candidate that could’ve harmed his chances in the election that year. In the 50-page lawsuit, the Manhattan DA is asking for a “permanent injunction, preliminary injunction, and temporary restraining order enjoining any enforcement of the subpoena served on Pomerantz” as well as preventing his former colleague from complying with the subpoena.
“This action in response to an unprecedently brazen and unconstitutional attack by members of Congress on an ongoing New York State criminal prosecution and investigation,” the filing states. The lawsuit argues that Congress has exceeded its authority by issuing the subpoena under Article I of the Constitution and “frustrates New York’s prerogative to enforce its own criminal law.”
“But 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 lawsuit also lays out the “violent and racist vitriol” that the former president has used to attack the legal process being carried out against him in New York. The filing states that his DA office has received over 1,000 calls and emails “many of which are threatening and racially charged” from Trump’s supporters.
Bragg’s criminal prosecution of Trump is just one a series of criminal investigations, one in Georgia and another federal probe led by Special Counsel Jack Smith, as well as civil legal proceedings he is facing.