By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Manhattan prosecutor who got Donald Trump indicted is set to face off in court on Wednesday against one of the former U.S. president’s staunchest Republican allies in Congress over a House committee’s probe of Trump’s criminal case.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, last week sued Representative Jim Jordan to block a subpoena for testimony from Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor who once led the office’s multi-year investigation of Trump.
The subpoena came from the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, which Jordan chairs.
A hearing is scheduled for 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) in federal court in Manhattan before U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil.
Bragg has called the subpoena an unconstitutional “incursion” into a state criminal case, and payback for charging Trump in the first indictment of a former U.S. president.
The subpoena is part of a plan to “intimidate, harass, retaliate, and hold ‘accountable’ District Attorney Bragg for enforcing New York’s criminal law against a then-New Yorker, Mr. Trump,” Bragg’s lawyers said in a Tuesday filing.
Jordan countered that lawmakers needed Pomerantz’s testimony, now scheduled for Thursday, as they weigh legislation to let presidents move state criminal actions to federal court. He said the subpoena was covered by constitutional protection for “speech or debate” in Congress.
Pomerantz urged Vyskocil to block the subpoena and said he played no role in Bragg’s decision to charge Trump.
Trump, the Republican frontrunner in the 2024 presidential campaign, pleaded not guilty on April 4 to 34 felony charges over a hush money payment made before the 2016 election to porn star Stormy Daniels, to prevent her from discussing a sexual encounter she said they had. He denies the liaison took place.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
