It looks like Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg is going to have to face Jim Jordan's circus proceedings whether he wants to or not, because the federal judge in today's hearing made it very clear the House GOP has the right to interfere in his case against Donald Trump.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s legal team lost their bid to block the deposition of his former deputy on Wednesday, as a federal judge appointed by former President Trump quickly rejected the prosecutor’s request for a restraining order after a fiery hearing.
In a 25-page opinion and order issued within two hours of the hearing, U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil deployed a phrase often used against Trump and repackaged it for Bragg’s ex-deputy Mark Pomerantz.
“The subpoena was issued with a ‘valid legislative purpose’ in connection with the
‘broad’ and ‘indispensable’ congressional power to ‘conduct investigations,'” she wrote. “It is not the role of the federal judiciary to dictate what legislation Congress may consider or how it should conduct its deliberations in that connection. Mr. Pomerantz must appear for the congressional deposition. No one is above the law.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Judge 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.”
When reports emerged that a grand jury was gearing up to indict Trump, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan started scrutinizing Bragg in a series of letters that capped off in a letter to his former deputy Mark Pomerantz. Bragg accused Jordan of an unprecedented campaign of interference into a local prosecutor’s investigation. The DA eventually sued Jordan and his committee in federal court.
Vyskocil rattled off at length about her view of the political backdrop of the spat toward the end of the opinion, which includes 17 footnotes.
“In our federalist system, elected state and federal actors sometimes engage in political dogfights,” she wrote in her conclusion. “Bragg complains of political interference in the local DANY case, but Bragg does not operate outside of the political arena. Bragg is presumptively acting in good faith. That said, he is an elected prosecutor in New York County with constituents, some of whom wish to see Bragg wield the force of law against the former President and a current candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Jordan, in turn, has initiated a political response to what he and some of his constituents view as a manifest abuse of power and nakedly political prosecution, funded (in part) with federal money, that has the potential to interfere with the exercise of presidential duties and with an upcoming federal election. The Court does not endorse either side’s agenda. The sole question before the Court at this time is whether Bragg has a legal basis to quash a congressional subpoena that was issued with a valid legislative purpose. He does not.”
So, no, Bragg is going to have to answer Jordan's raft of subpoenas, and this judge is going to make sure that Bragg gets investigated, intimidated, delayed, stopped, sabotaged, frustrated and delayed at every single turn.
Jordan and the House GOP couldn't have asked for a better judge if it was Trump himself presiding over the hearings, because "There’s politics going on here on both sides here, Let’s be honest about that.”
So, both sides, yay.
Bragg is quite possibly screwed at this point, and we may not see this case for years, if at all, because this Judge thinks House GOP is operating in good faith, Jesus.
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