World
Judge to rule on Congress’ subpoena in Trump case ‘promptly’
A US judge on Wednesday said she would rule “promptly” in a standoff between the Manhattan prosecutor who got Donald Trump indicted and one of the former president’s staunchest Republican allies in Congress.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, last week sued Republican Representative Jim Jordan to block a subpoena for testimony from Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor who once led the office’s multiyear investigation of Trump.
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The subpoena came from the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, which Jordan chairs.
US District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil heard arguments from both sides on Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan. She said she would publish a decision “as promptly as I can.”
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 US 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 front-runner 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.
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