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NEW YORK, April 12 (AP) – Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted Rep. Jim Jordan on Tuesday, an extraordinary move as he sought to block an investigation by the House Judiciary Committee that prosecutors said was a His “transparency campaign” against former President Donald Trump “intimidated and attacked” him.
Prague, a Democrat, asked a judge to announce that House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jordan, a Republican, had issued or planned to issue a subpoena as part of an investigation into Prague’s handling of the case, the first criminal indictment against a former U.S. president.
Bragg’s lawsuit is a forceful escalation after weeks of sparring with Jordan and other Republican lawmakers in letters and media statements aimed at ending what it says is “constitutional fishing that threatens the sovereignty and sanctity of state attorneys”. expedition”.
“Congress lacked any effective legislative purpose to conduct a free-ranging harassment campaign in retaliation for the District Attorney’s investigation and prosecution of Mr. Trump under New York law,” the lawsuit said, noting the lack of constitutional authority for Congress to “oversee, Not to mention undermining ongoing state law criminal cases.”
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In response, Jordan tweeted on Tuesday: “First, they charged the President with innocence. Then, when we asked about federal funding of what they said they had done, they sued to block congressional oversight.”
The Judiciary Committee recently issued a subpoena to testify from Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor who oversaw the Trump investigation and sparred with Bragg over the direction of the investigation before leaving office last year. The committee also requested documents and testimony from the prosecutor’s office, but Prague rejected those requests.
The committee is scheduled to hold a hearing in Manhattan on Monday to discuss crime in New York City and what it calls Prague’s “pro-crime, fight-victim” policies. However, statistics pointed to by the district attorney’s office show that violent crime has declined in Manhattan since Bragg took office in January 2022.
In response, Bragg said that if Jordan, who is from Ohio, “really cared about public safety,” he would head to some of the major cities in his home state, which reportedly have higher crime rates than New York.
Bragg is represented in the lawsuit by prominent First Amendment attorney Theodore Boutrous, who also represents Trump’s estranged niece Mary Trump in her famous Uncle conflicts with the law. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vescociel, a Trump appointee who has served as a federal bankruptcy court judge.
Bragg said in his lawsuit that he is taking legal action “in response to an unprecedented, brazen and unconstitutional attack by members of Congress on the ongoing New York State criminal prosecution and investigation of former President Donald J. Trump.”
Trump was indicted on March 30 with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments made during the 2016 campaign to cover up allegations he had sex outside of marriage. He denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty at an arraignment in Manhattan last week.
Republicans had been bashing Prague even before Trump was indicted, with Jordan spearheading a series of letters and subpoenas to those involved. Pomerantz, at the direction of Bragg’s office, refused to voluntarily cooperate with the committee’s request last month, citing the ongoing investigation.
Jordan credits senior lieutenants Pomerantz and Carey Dunne, who run day-to-day investigations, as the catalyst for Prague’s decision to move forward with the hush money case.
The Prague lawsuit launches an already tenuous fight over the scope and limits of congressional oversight powers entering new territory. House Republicans have argued that because the Manhattan case involves campaign finance, which prosecutors say was a conspiracy to undermine the integrity of the 2016 election, Congress has direct oversight power.
Many expected Jordan to be in Prague by now, but the back-and-forth between the two elected officials appears to have surfaced. The Jordan committee has cracked down on Prague in recent weeks, but a court battle over the committee’s subpoena could hamper its momentum and fuel criticism from Democrats that the committee is playing politics rather than addressing substantive issues. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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