A federal judge in New York rejected the Manhattan District Attorney’s request on Wednesday for a temporary order to prevent the subpoena of former prosecutor Mark Pomerantz before the House Judiciary Committee. Alvin Bragg announced that he is appealing, but Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil refused in the evening to suspend his decision during this process. Pomerantz will therefore have to appear this Thursday at 10 a.m.
“The subpoena was issued for a ‘valid legislative purpose’ in connection with Congress’ ‘broad’ and ‘indispensable’ power to ‘conduct investigations,'” the judge wrote in her ruling. “It is not for the federal judiciary to dictate what legislation Congress may consider or how it should conduct its deliberations in this regard. Mr. Pomerantz is due to appear for Congressional deposition. No one is above the law. »
Bragg had argued that the subpoena issued to Pomerantz was part of a ‘transparent campaign’ orchestrated by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan to ‘intimidate and attack’ the Manhattan district attorney’s office. , who had just accused Donald Trump of falsifying corporate documents in connection with the Stormy Daniels affair.
Pomerantz was a lead prosecutor in a sweeping investigation into Donald Trump’s business practices. Angered by Bragg’s refusal to indict the former president for these practices, he resigned in early 2022 and published a book this year criticizing the Manhattan prosecutor.
Judge Vyskocil was nominated by Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate in 2019. She has already intervened in a case concerning the former president. In September 2020, she dismissed a defamation lawsuit brought by former Playboy model Karen McDougal against Fox News. McDougal alleged that Fox News host Tucker Carlson defamed her by suggesting that she extorted Trump when she obtained a $150,000 payment from American Media, publisher of the National Enquirerfor her life story, which included allegations of a long affair with Trump.
The National Enquirerwhose goal was to protect Trump before the 2016 presidential election, never published this story.
The judge held that Carlson did not charge McDougal with committing a crime. According to her, the host had simply resorted to hyperbole to “promote debate on a subject of public interest”.
One wonders what she would have thought of the Dominion Voting Systems libel suit.
(Photos AP/Getty Images)
