In a new book released Tuesday, the man who led the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into Donald Trump’s alleged financial crimes says that the case is strong and that D.A. Alvin Bragg should have filed charges against the former president.
“He [Bragg] failed to recognize that the case had to be brought to vindicate the rule of law, and to demonstrate to the public that no one can hold himself above the law,” writes Mark Pomerantz in “People vs. Donald Trump.”
Asked about Pomerantz’s book on Tuesday, Bragg told reporters: “We have an active ongoing investigation so I’m constrained from what I can say. … But here’s what I can say. … I bring hard cases when they are ready. … I came to the same conclusion that multiple senior prosecutors in my office independently came to, and that was that Mark Pomerantz’s case simply was not ready.”
Pomerantz, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice, was hired as a special assistant district attorney by Cy Vance, Bragg’s predecessor as Manhattan DA, in December 2020 to work on the Trump case, given his previous experience in white collar and complex financial cases. As NBC News has previously reported, Pomerantz was directly involved in interviewing potential witnesses.
The probe focused on whether Trump had manipulated the stated worth of his assets to win loans and tax breaks. Pomerantz wanted to charge Trump with falsifying business records and other crimes related to the Stormy Daniels hush money payments and exaggeration of his net worth, and says in his book that he had Vance’s approval.
Bragg succeeded Vance as district attorney in January 2022. Two people familiar with the matter told NBC News that Bragg and several career prosecutors soon had concerns about the case Pomerantz was building, including his interpretation of the law and a lack of key facts in memos about the potential indictment. The people familiar with the matter said four prosecutors left the Manhattan…
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