The former head of the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into Donald Trump has dismissed claims that information revealed in his new tell-all book will jeopardise any case brought against the former president.
“I believe the criticism is unfounded,” Mark Pomerantz said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” predicting that his book would be “meaningless” in any prosecution.
“People vs. Donald Trump,” Pomerantz’s book, details his work as a special prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office investigating Trump’s alleged financial crimes. Former D.A. Cy Vance Jr. hired Pomerantz, a former federal prosecutor, to lead the investigation into Trump’s finances. The team successfully indicted the Trump Organization for fraud, but Pomerantz resigned a month into the new Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg’s tenure when Bragg himself refused to approve a case against Trump.
Todd noted that many former prosecutors, including Andrew Weissmann, an MSNBC contributor and member of special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, and former U.S. attorney Barbara McQuade, have publicly stated that the revelations in Pomerantz’s book could stymie efforts to prosecute Trump and be weaponized by Trump’s defence attorneys in a trial.
Obstacles to holding a jury trial “flow from the ocean of ink spilled about Donald Trump and his lies and, in my opinion, his crimes,” Pomerantz replied. “I don’t believe my book will make a difference if there is a jury trial.”
Pomerantz predicted that Trump’s defence attorneys would object to “everything under the sun,” and that the district attorney’s office would tell the court, “‘There is nothing in this book that should prejudice this prosecution. So the book is meaningless because it offers no defence.'”
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office appears to be moving forward with a possible prosecution of Trump for alleged hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels. Pomerantz noted that anything in his book about the case had already been “literally years” in the public domain, thanks to the media, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s book, and the federal case against Cohen for the payments.
“I am as certain as I can be that this will not jeopardise the prosecution,” Pomerantz said.
When pressed by Todd, Pomerantz insisted that Vance had authorised a Trump prosecution before leaving office at the end of 2021. When asked why no charges had been filed, Pomerantz stated that the case had not been completed: “We couldn’t get it done.”
Bragg, who took office in January 2022, has stated that he and other prosecutors reviewed the case and concluded that it was not ready.
