House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, shot back at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on Tuesday over what the lawmaker said was a naked effort to obstruct congressional oversight.
"First, they indict a president for no crime," Jordan tweeted after Bragg sued to block House GOP subpoenas of prosecutors who might have conflicts of interest with their office's efforts to hang charges on former President Donald Trump.
"Then, they sue to block congressional oversight when we ask questions about the federal funds they say they used to do it."
Bragg sued Jordan on Tuesday, seeking to block a House Judiciary Committee inquiry into hush money payments tied to Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Bragg claimed House oversight subpoenas are a "transparent campaign to intimidate and attack."
Bragg indicted Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with the payments.
Some legal experts have derided the Bragg filing as thin.
One, constitutional law expert and frequent Newsmax guest Alan Dershowitz, said the case amounted to a single misdemeanor-level charge stretched out over 34 felony counts.
Others have bluntly accused Bragg and his office of pursuing the case as part of ongoing efforts by Democrats to tarnish Trump and damage his 2024 reelection bid.
After weeks of letters back and forth between House GOP chairmen and Bragg, the Manhattan DA finally sued to block congressional oversight, asserting lawmakers have neither authority nor legislative purposes in getting involved.
"Congress lacks any valid legislative purpose to engage in a free-ranging campaign of harassment in retaliation for the District Attorney's investigation and prosecution of Mr. Trump under the laws of New York," Tuesday's lawsuit claimed, rejecting the constitutional authority of Congress "to oversee, let alone disrupt, ongoing state law criminal matters."
The Judiciary Committee recently issued a subpoena seeking testimony from former prosecutor Mark Pomerantz; Jordan subpoenaed him to try to shine a light on anti-Trump animus and an organized effort to get Trump.
Pomerantz authored the book "People vs. Donald Trump: An Inside Account," about efforts to prosecute the former president.
"You explain that this 'collective weight' of President Trump's conduct over the years 'left no doubt in [your] mind that Trump deserved to be prosecuted,'" Jordan's letter read. "In other words, as a special assistant district attorney, you seem, for reasons unrelated to the facts of this particular investigation, to have been searching for any basis on which to bring criminal charges.
"Although you claim that you were 'able to put aside personal feelings about Trump' during the investigation, the depth of your personal animosity towards him is apparent in your writing. You wrote of President Trump: 'I saw him as a malignant narcissist, and perhaps even a megalomaniac who posed a real danger to the country and the ideals that mattered to me. His behavior made me angry, sad, and even disgusted.'"
Bragg's lawsuit comes just days before a House GOP field hearing in Manhattan was set for Monday to focus on a significant crime wave under Bragg.
Bragg is represented in the lawsuit by Theodore Boutrous, who has also represented Trump's estranged niece Mary Trump. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil, a Trump appointee who previously served as a federal bankruptcy court judge.
Republicans have been railing against Bragg even before Trump's indictment, with Jordan leading the cause by issuing a series of letters and subpoenas to individuals involved with the case. Pomerantz refused to voluntarily cooperate with the committee's request last month at the instruction of Bragg's office, citing the ongoing investigation.
Jordan sees Pomerantz and Carey Dunne, who were top deputies tasked with running the investigation on a day-to-day basis, as catalysts for Bragg's decision to move ahead with the hush money case.
Bragg's lawsuit sets up a clash over the scope and limits of congressional oversight. House Republicans have argued because the Manhattan case involves campaign finance and what prosecutors say was a conspiracy to undermine the integrity of the 2016 election, Congress must have direct oversight authority.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.