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‘Political Theater’: Former Prosecutor Who Investigated Trump Pleads Fifth to Jim Jordan’s ‘Cynical Histrionics’
Mark Pomerantz made clear Friday that he will show up but he’s not going to say much to Republican House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan.
Pomerantz is one of two former prosecutors for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office who investigated Donald Trump under Cyrus Vance’s leadership, but resigned in protest after Alvin Bragg was elected and seemed to have shut down the investigation into Trump’s alleged porn star hush money payoff and alleged alterations of the valuations of his properties.
Chairman Jordan subpoenaed Pomerantz, a subpoena Pomerantz fought on several grounds including Congress has no constitutional authority over a state or local official or their criminal investigation. Many legal experts agree that Jordan is interfering in Bragg’s investigation, and now prosecution, of Trump, who has since been charged by Bragg with 34 felony violations.
Pomerantz has said not only does he strongly believe Donald Trump committed crimes, he strongly believes it would not be hard to convict the ex-president of those crimes. In his resignation letter to Bragg Pomerantz wrote he believed Trump was “guilty of numerous felony violations” and it was “a grave failure of justice” to not prosecute him for them.
But Pomerantz sat down Friday for a closed-door deposition, and in a prepared statement blasted Jordan.
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“I am here because I respect the rule of law. I spent my working life in service to the rule of law, and the rule of law requires a witness to appear for testimony in response to a subpoena. So, I am present as required,” a defiant Pomerantz wrote (see statement below). He may have been referencing that Jordan himself, possibly unlawfully, refused to cooperate with a lawful subpoena issued by the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.
“What I do not respect is the use of the Committee’s subpoena power to compel me to participate in an act of political theater.”
“This deposition is for show,” he added. “I do not believe for a moment that I am here to assist a genuine effort to enact legislation or conduct legislative ‘oversight.'”
“We are gathered here because Donald Trump’s supporters would like to use these proceedings to attempt to obstruct and undermine the criminal case pending against him, and to harass, intimidate, and discredit anyone who investigates or charges him. Fortunately, I do not have to cooperate with the cynical histrionics that this deposition represents. Although the rule of law compels me to be here, it does not
require that I play a substantive role in your theatrical production. Under the law, I can decline to answer your questions for several reasons.”
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He went on to explain he is required by law to maintain “claims of privilege and confidentiality in order to protect the integrity of the pending prosecution and continuing investigation of Donald Trump.”
He tells Jordan, “the rule of law is best served if the merits of the case against Mr. Trump are litigated before the court that is hearing that case. This is neither the time nor the place for me to answer questions about the investigation or the pending indictment over the objection of the prosecutors. The charges against Mr. Trump should be heard and decided by a judge and a jury before politicians second-guess their merits or the decision to bring them. That’s how our system works. Those who claim that they respect the rule of law should wait for the courts to do their work.”
After explaining additional reasons he is invoking his Fifth Amendment rights, Pomerantz says: “It gives me no joy to invoke my legal rights, but I am glad that the law allows me not to cooperate with this performance of political theater. As an American, I am privileged to have the legal rights that I assert today, and I am hopeful that I live in a country that will continue to respect them.”
CNN’s Annie Grayer posted a copy of Pomerantz’s letter. Read it below or at this link.
Mark Pomerantz opening statement to House Judiciary Committee. He calls the committee’s subpoena to him “political theater” and explains that he is taking the 5th now that formal charges are pending against Trump pic.twitter.com/S8EeY6cr1u
— Annie Grayer (@AnnieGrayerCNN) May 12, 2023
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
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Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
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