DA Alvin Bragg and Rep. Jim Jordan (Photos via AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez and Alex Edelman/Getty Images)
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s legal team received an extremely tough reception on Wednesday, as a federal judge appointed by former President Trump sharply questioned his attempt to invalidate the GOP-controlled House Judiciary’s subpoena.
U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil interrupted Bragg’s attorney Theodore Boutrous repeatedly throughout the hourlong hearing, accusing him of playing politics.
“There’s politics going on here on both sides here,” Vyskocil said. “Let’s be honest about that.”
Throughout the proceedings, Vyskocil peppered multiple attorneys for Bragg with questions on various topics. One of those topics was a book by Bragg’s former deputy Mark Pomerantz: “People v. Trump,” criticizing the DA for declining to prosecute the former president in a separate tax matter.
In a particularly cutting series of questions, the judge asked Boutrous directly: “How does this book, which is chock full of what Mr. Pomerantz calls an ‘insider account,’ how does it not disclose mental impressions, deliberations of the office, the internal workings of the District Attorney’s office, how is there not a waiver?”
The DA’s office insists that the DA’s privilege wasn’t Pomerantz’s to waive.
Bragg’s general counsel Leslie Dubeck addressed the waiver question in separate questioning, which was equally incisive.
“Have you read this book?” Vyskocil, who had a copy of the tome, asked.
“Yes,” Dubeck acknowledged.
“Does it preserve your confidences?” the judge needled.
Dubeck acknowledged that Pomerantz did not and said he opened himself to criminal and civil liability. The judge then pointedly asked whether the DA’s office took any actions to block the distribution of the book.
The Judiciary Committee — led by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio — claims the subpoena of Pomerantz is also justified as part of an effort to examine how federal funds are spent by the local prosecutor’s office.
In a letter preceding its lawsuit, the DA’s office denied spending any federal money to prosecute Trump, and it’s given the U.S. government more than it gets, adding more than $1 billion into its coffers over the past 15 years. By contrast, Bragg’s predecessor Cyrus Vance spent roughly $5,000 on expenses incurred relating to the investigation of Trump or his namesake business between October 2019 and August 2021, according to the letter.
Bragg says he didn’t spend any federal funds on his investigation and indictment of Trump.
On Wednesday, the DA’s lawyer conceded that looking into the expenditure of federal money would be a valid legislative purpose, but she said that this wasn’t the case for exploring that.
Jordan held a “field hearing” earlier this week attacking Bragg’s crime record, and Boutrous cited it at one point as evidence that the investigation is an attempt to “intimidate” the DA.
“That’s your interpretation of it,” Vyskocil snapped.
At another point of the proceedings, she said that she isn’t interested in the “color” and “theater” of what takes place outside the courtroom.
The committee’s attorney Matthew Berry didn’t have an easy reception, either, though his questioning was comparably less stinging. The judge noted a seeming disconnect between the committee’s argument that the investigation is needed for legislative purposes and the fact that they’ve already introduced a bill.
“If you already introduced the bill, why do you need testimony?” Vyskocil noted.
She also quizzed Berry on how the committee would handle any claims of privilege by Pomerantz.
“Do you intend to respect the invocation of privilege if this deposition were to go forward?” she asked.
Berry said that the chair, Jordan, would decide on a case-by-case basis whether to sustain privilege objections. Pomerantz indicated in a declaration that he now finds himself between a proverbial rock and a hard place.
“If I refuse to provide information to the Committee, I risk being held in contempt of Congress and referred to the Department of Justice for possible criminal prosecution,” his declaration states. “If, on the other hand, I defy the District Attorney’s instructions and answer questions, I face possible legal or ethical consequences, including criminal prosecution.”
Vyskocil took notice of that Catch-22 during the hearing. As she promised at the start of the hearing, she finished the proceedings promptly after an hour — and without a ruling.
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