OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has “indefinitely” suspended his department’s criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump and his business, Trump Organization, according to a resignation letter from one of his top prosecutors.
Mark Pomerantz and Carey Dunne, who were leading the investigation under former DA Cyrus Vance, turned in their resignations last month after Bragg began raising doubts about going forward with a case against Trump.
In his letter, Pomerantz said he disagreed with Bragg’s decision to end the investigation.
“You have reached the decision not to go forward with the grand jury presentation and not to seek criminal charges at the present time,” Pomerantz noted in his resignation letter, which was first reported by the New York Times. “The investigation has been suspended indefinitely.”
“Of course, that is your decision to make,” Pomerantz wrote to Bragg. “I do not question your authority to make it, and I accept that you have made it sincerely.”
However, Pomerantz said that “a decision made in good faith may nevertheless be wrong.”
“I believe that your decision not to prosecute Donald Trump now, and on the existing record, is misguided and completely contrary to the public interest,” Pomerantz wrote. “I therefore cannot continue in my current position.”
The now-former prosecutor noted further that he believed the former president is “guilty of numerous felony violations” and added that it would be a “grave failure of justice not to prosecute him.”
Pomerantz and Dunne both had previously agreed to remain on with the district attorney’s office after Vance’s term expired in January and Bragg took the helm. Reports said that Vance was moving towards indicting Trump, but for some reason did not do so despite his office spending nearly a year investigating Trump, a former resident of New York City.
At the time, Bragg said he was getting up to speed on the Trump investigation and vowed to “follow the facts,” Fox News reported.
“It’s a matter that’s personally, as you would imagine, on my radar screen and that I’m mindful of and paying attention to,” Bragg noted.
However, while Pomerantz and his team were preparing to move forward with charges against Trump, the incoming DA was not.
In spite of Bragg’s decision, Pomerantz, in his resignation letter, stated that his team that had been investigating Trump “harbors no doubt about whether he committed crimes—he did.”
However, Pomerantz’s claim is being refuted by a source familiar with the probe who spoke to Fox News Digital. The source pointed the network to the former president’s “Statement of Financial Condition,” which is a report detailing an entity’s assets, liabilities, and the ability to raise and use funds.
The source told Fox News that Trump did not artificially inflate his financial statements, as prosecutors anticipated or allege, but rather he actually undervalued his assets.
The source also told Fox News that Trump never defaulted on payments to banks, adding that his statement of financial condition included “caveats” which “refuted” claims by the DA’s office.
The network added:
One source familiar with the investigation claimed the case against Trump was political and fueled by the former president’s political enemies, and told Fox News that Pomerantz “shouldn’t have been in the DA’s office in the first place.” Â
Before joining Vance’s office, Pomerantz was of counsel at New York law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. He took leave from the firm last year to join Vance’s office to investigate Trump’s financial dealings.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s brother, Robert Schumer, is a partner at the firm. Pomerantz donated to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
“It is a great tribute to the system that Alvin Bragg came in and stopped the unfairness against Trump,” a source close to the investigation told the network. “Bragg and his team did the legally and morally correct thing, and they didn’t go the typical political route.”
The source added that Bragg and his team “realized they had no case, they stopped it.”
