Jim Jordan subpoenas former Manhattan prosecutor in first strike against office prosecuting Trump

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan on Thursday subpoenaed a former Manhattan prosecutor who openly campaigned to criminally charge Donald Trump – in the first significant strike at the office that brought the historic indictment against the former president this week.

Jordan's subpoena to former Special Assistant District Attorney Mark Pomerantz comes just days after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg pointedly declined to provide documents and testimony to Jordan's committee, calling it an interference in his investigation.

In a letter last month, the GOP-led panel requested Pomerantz’s voluntary cooperation, but he declined to cooperate at the direction of Bragg's office. 

The subpoena compels his cooperation, setting up a potential legal battle pitting the oversight powers of the federal legislative branch against a state judicial system.

In his letter transmitting the subpoena, Jordan told Pomerantz his testimony was needed in part to inform legislation that would protect future presidents from political persecutions.

"The New York County District Attorney’s unprecedented prosecutorial conduct requires oversight to inform the consideration of potential legislative reforms that would, if enacted, insulate current and former Presidents from such politically motivated state and local prosecutions," Jordan wrote.

"These potential legislative reforms may include, among other things, broadening the existing statutory right of removal of certain criminal cases from state court to federal court."

You can read the letter here.

The letter also noted that Pomerantz publicly criticized Bragg for failing to aggressively prosecute Trump last year, and even wrote a memoir describing his eagerness to investigate the 45th president. The GOP chairman said Pomerantz’s public statements about the investigation strongly suggest that Bragg’s subsequent indictment is politically motivated. 

The letter called the former prosecutor memoir a a "300-page exercise in score-settling and scorn."