Manhattan DA sues Jim Jordan to block ‘transparent campaign’ of intimidation over Trump prosecution

Lawsuit seeks to block any future subpoena targeting district attorney or his office

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has asked a federal court to enjoin House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan from interfering in his office’s prosecution of former president Donald Trump by attempting to compel current and former prosecutors to divulge information about the probe as part of the Republican-led panel’s effort to protect Mr Trump.

In a complaint filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, Mr Bragg’s attorneys said the lawsuit was a response to “an unprecedently brazen and unconstitutional attack by members of Congress” against the Manhattan prosecutor’s probe into Mr Trump.

They also accused Mr Jordan of undertaking “a transparent campaign to intimidate and attack District Attorney Bragg, making demands for confidential documents and testimony from the District Attorney himself as well as his current and former employees and officials”.

Mr Bragg’s lawsuit comes just days after Mr Jordan issued a subpoena to Mark Pomerantz, a former special assistant district attorney who resigned in protest last year and later penned a book in which he called Mr Trump “as a malignant narcissist, and perhaps even a megalomaniac who posed a real danger to the country and the ideals that mattered to [him]” and said the ex-president was guilty of numerous crimes.

Mr Jordan has also threatened to subpoena Mr Bragg himself to question him about his office’s probe into the ex-president during an appearanceon Fox Business Network’s Sunday Morning Futures last week, and a source with the Judiciary panel has told Fox News that the committee is “seriously weighing” the option.

“Everything’s on the table,” Mr Jordan said when asked if Mr Bragg would face subpoena.

The Manhattan prosecutor’s lawsuit asks the court to issue a declaratory judgment invalidating the subpoena against Mr Pomerantz, as well as a permanent injunction barring Mr Jordan from enforcing the subpoena.

Mr Bragg’s attorneys also have asked the court to invalidate any future subpoena issued to Mr Bragg “or any of his current or former employees or official,” citing constitutional separation of powers principles which leave the prosecution of violations of state law to local prosecutors and place that work outside the scope of Congress’ purview.