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The House GOP is now setting its sights on two former prosecutors who resigned from the Manhattan DA’s office over the handling of his investigation into former President Trump.
Attorney Mark Pomerantz and Carey Dunne sought to prosecute Trump in 2022 and resigned after Bragg rejected their legal theories.
But Bragg has since reversed course — last week Trump announced he expected to be arrested this week, which has not happened.
Even before Bragg has handed down his rumored indictment over Trump’s hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan has called for not only Bragg to testify and provide documents but now for Pomerantz and Carey Dunne to do the same.
The House GOP is now setting its sights on two former prosecutors who resigned from the Manhattan DA’s office over the handling of his investigation into former President Trump
Donald Trump sits in the rear of his limousine as he leaves from Trump International Golf Club in Palm Beach, Florida, on March 23 — as the indictment looms
House Administration Chair Bryan Steil and House Oversight Chair James Comer also signed their name to a letter demanding Bragg’s testimony and House GOP leadership signaled their support.
‘Last year, you resigned from the office over Bragg’s initial reluctance to move forward with charges in 2022, Bragg is now attempting to ‘shoehorn’ the same case with identical facts into a new prosecution,’ Jordan wrote.
‘Based on your unique role in this matter, we request your cooperation with our oversight of this prosecutorial decision,’ the Ohio Republican continued.
Jordan concluded: ‘The totality of these facts is that Bragg’s impending indictment is motivated by political calculations.’
‘The facts of this matter have not changed since 2018 and no new witnesses have emerged. The Justice Department examined the facts in 2019 and opted not to pursue further prosecutions at that time. Even still, according to reporting, the investigation ‘gained some momentum this year,’ and Bragg’s office ‘convened a new grand jury in January to evaluate the issue.’ The only intervening factor, it appears, was President Trump’s announcement that he would be a candidate for President in 2024.’
And while House GOP leaders are firing off investigations before Bragg’s rumored indictment has even come down, some Senate Republicans are rolling their eyes.
While Republican senators shrugged off questions involving the former president the prevailing sentiment seemed to be, House is gonna House.
‘The House is always gonna do what the House wants to do,’ South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds told DailyMail.com. ‘I won’t try to pass judgment on them and i hope they won’t pass judgment on us.’
Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., expressed concerns about the House’s aggressive oversight agenda more broadly.
‘You know the House is doing a lot of investigations,’ he told DailyMail.com. ‘What I worry about is that all of this stuff gets in the way of bigger things that are more important to the American people.’
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He also said the investigation ‘could be a little bit premature’ as no criminal charges against the former president have even been finalized.
Cramer continued:
‘It’s a little bit of gamesmanship going on, I just think it’s not very interesting to most people at a time when there’s so much, so much uncertainty about their own personal situations, whether it’s whether it’s crime, or you know, fentanyl or southern border or their paycheck, keeping up with inflation and their ability to buy a home or not buy a home because mortgage rates are so high.’
It’s the latest example where Republican leaders in the lower chamber being the attack dogs for former President Trump and Republicans in the upper chamber groaning when Trump and his legal woes pop back up in the news cycle.
Florida Sen. Rick Scott declined to comment on whether his home state’s governor should intervene on behalf of the former president after Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz insisted Ron DeSantis should do just that.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (pictured Thursday arriving at his office) will not convene the grand jury for the hush money case against Trump
The former president acknowledged that he approved a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels to settle what he called a ‘nuisance fee’ but denied the affair.
‘Ron DeSantis should be standing in the breach to stop any sort of extradition of President Trump from the state of Florida,’ Gaetz wrote on Twitter. ‘The fact that he’s not doing so puts every Floridian at risk.’
Sen. Lindsey Graham gave a hurried ‘yes’ when asked if he supported the House’s investigation, but went no further.
‘I would hope they would stick to the agenda they ran on when they got elected to the majority,’ Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told Punchbowl News.
Bragg is investigating whether Trump was involved in the hush money payments his former attorney Michael Cohen sent to Daniels during the 2016 campaign.
An official confirmed to DailyMail.com that Bragg canceled the grand jury on Wednesday and Thursday. It remains unclear why the grand jury is not reconvening for the rest of the week amid reports that the panel needs to hear from a final witness before levying a judgment.
Trump has urged his supporters to take to the streets and protest as he still maintains complete innocence of any wrongdoing in the allegations. The former president acknowledged that he approved a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels to settle what he called a ‘nuisance fee’ but denied the affair.
But bombshell new documents obtained by DailyMail.com show that Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen claimed in a 2018 letter that he was not reimbursed by his client or his businesses for the hush money payments to Daniels.
The letter to federal authorities could throw a wrench in the works for prosecutors looking to pursue criminal charges against Trump for the payment.
Cohen, a star witness in the trial, claims that Trump reimbursed him with personal funds. He later pleaded guilty to violating federal campaign finance law over the hush money.
