Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney behind the criminal indictment of Donald Trump, has sued Republican Jim Jordan in an attempt to squash attempts to compel current and former New York prosecutors to provide evidence to the House judiciary committee.
In a lawsuit filed in New York federal court on Tuesday, Bragg said his office had been the subject of an “unprecedentedly brazen and unconstitutional attack”, by Jordan and the committee he chairs, accusing the Ohio Republican of creating a “retaliatory political circus designed to undermine the rule of law”.
Jordan, a staunch Trump ally, has consistently attacked Bragg’s office over what he claimed was a political witch-hunt by the Democrat to charge the former president with 34 counts of falsifying business records in a case that has drawn fierce pushback from Republicans.
Earlier this week, Jordan said he would bring his committee to New York and hold a “field hearing” on how the Manhattan district attorney’s policies had led to an increase in violent crime in the city.
Bragg’s lawsuit seeks to block a subpoena issued by the judiciary committee to former Manhattan prosecutor Mark Pomerantz, which the DA said was designed “for the purpose of interfering with New York’s criminal prosecution of a single individual”.
Pomerantz resigned as a Manhattan prosecutor in February 2022 in protest at Bragg’s failure to bring criminal charges against Trump. Jordan has previously tried to compel Pomerantz — who wrote a book about his work on the Trump investigations — to hand over documents and evidence related to his time at the DA’s office.
His committee had also written to current Manhattan prosecutor Matthew Colangelo seeking similar records, lawyers for the DA’s office said in their complaint.
“Members of Congress are not free to invade New York’s sovereign authority for their or Mr Trump’s political aims,” the complaint said, adding that Jordan’s rhetoric had fuelled a “campaign of intimidation” that had led to Bragg receiving death threats.
In a tweet posted shortly after the filing, Jordan repeated his allegation that the DA’s office had indicted a former president “for no crime” and accused Bragg of suing “to block congressional oversight when we ask questions about the federal funds they say they used to do it”.
Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil, the Trump appointee who has been assigned to the case, declined to immediately impose a temporary restraining order on Jordan or Pomerantz, and set a hearing on it for next week.
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