OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has been hit with more bad news.
A federal judge on Wednesday rejected Bragg’s request to block a former prosecutor in his office from testifying before the House Judiciary Committee about the criminal case against former President Donald Trump.
“The committee and its chairman, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), had subpoenaed ex-assistant district attorney Mark Pomerantz to give testimony about the DA’s investigation into Trump, 76, that culminated in the former president’s indictment in March. Bragg filed suit against Jordan and the Judiciary Committee, claiming the subpoena was an overreach by the GOP-led House and an attempt to influence a state criminal proceeding,” the New York Post reported. “But Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil found the subpoena was issued with a valid legislative purpose and that it was not the federal judiciary’s role to dictate how Congress operates.”
“Mr. Pomerantz must appear for the congressional deposition. No one is above the law,” Judge Vyskocil wrote in an opinion issued after a Manhattan federal court hearing.
Attorney Alan Dershowitz recently praised Trump for his legal maneuver this week in his battle with Bragg.
During a panel discussion Wednesday night on Fox News, host Sean Hannity, Greg Jarrett, and Dershowitz discussed Trump filing a $500 million lawsuit against Michael Cohen, his former personal lawyer.
Cohen testified before the Manhattan grand jury that indicted Trump on 34 criminal charges of falsifying business records related to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Trump sent a payment to Daniels ahead of the 2016 election, allegedly to keep Daniels quiet about an affair the two of them had in 2006. Trump pleaded not guilty to all 34 charges.
The panel praised Trump for suing Cohen, calling it a “legitimate move” and one that should have been done.
“Good move. Good move. First of all, lawyers should not be violating lawyer-client privilege, number one. Number two, he gets a discovery, if he survives a motion to dismiss, and he is going to be able to find out things the government wouldn’t turn over to him in a criminal trial. So I think it’s a very smart move to go after Trump,” Dershowitz said.
Hannity asked: “Are you assuming he has preserved all this information, and isn’t it likely that a lot of it doesn’t exist?”
“Well, you know, it’s very hard these days to hide things forever. With the internet, with social media, if you get the right people you can get things that people think they have hidden. So, I’m glad we are going to get to the bottom of this. Look, transparency is essential. If people have nothing to hide, they shouldn’t be worried,” Dershowitz said.
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Dershowitz also argued earlier this month that Bragg’s case against Trump could potentially lead to Bragg’s disbarment.
Dershowitz expressed his views on Fox News and suggested that Bragg could face a prison sentence of up to five years if he is found guilty of leaking information regarding Trump’s indictment to the media.
In New York, leaking grand jury testimony to the public is considered a Class E felony and can result in a prison sentence ranging from one to five years.
He also spoke about Bragg using former Trump personal lawyer Michael Cohen as a witness in his case against the former president, who was indicted on Thursday and is scheduled to be arraigned and make his first court appearance on Tuesday.
“I don’t think an indictment can actually come forward now after the comments made by [Robert] Costello. He has proved that the main witness is going to be a perjuring liar on the witness stand, and that puts the district attorney in a terrible position,” Dershowitz said.
“If he uses Cohen as a witness, he could actually lose his bar license. It’s unethical to put a witness on the stand who you know is lying, and he has to know that Cohen will be lying. Or he tries the case without Cohen, which would be very difficult, or he does the right thing: he drops the case,” he added.
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