On Thursday, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan issued a subpoena for Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office who was involved in investigating former President Trump. This action marks an escalation in the ongoing investigation into the DA’s office, which began after Trump predicted his arrest in connection with the probe. Jordan’s subpoena directs Pomerantz to appear before the committee for a deposition on April 20. In a cover letter accompanying the subpoena, Jordan stated that his committee had legislative reasons for demanding Pomerantz’s testimony.
“Congress has a specific and manifestly important interest in preventing politically motivated prosecutions of current and former Presidents by elected state and local prosecutors, particularly in jurisdictions—like New York County—where the prosecutor is popularly elected and trial-level judges lack life tenure,” the letter states.
Pomerantz, who had been assigned to the years-long Trump case, resigned from the Manhattan district attorney’s office in February 2022. His resignation letter, which appeared in The New York Times last March, stated that he believed Trump was “guilty of numerous felony violations” related to his financial statements, and that he was quitting because he thought the district attorney’s decision to “indefinitely” suspend the investigation into Trump was “misguided.”
Jordan argued that Pomerantz is “uniquely situated” to provide insight to the Judiciary Committee and that he has “no basis to decline to testify” given he has already made detailed accounts of his work on the Trump probe widely public.
The move by Jordan to escalate the Republican investigation into the Manhattan district attorney’s indictment of Trump suggests that Republicans are keen to keep the issue in the public eye. The subpoena also highlights the ongoing tension between Democrats and Republicans over Trump’s alleged misconduct while in office. Democrats have accused Trump of using his presidency to enrich himself, while Republicans have defended him, claiming that the accusations are politically motivated.
