According to the Incoming York Times, a Manhattan prosecutor who investigated Donald Trump’s financial transactions said in his resignation letter that he believes Trump is “guilty of several felony crimes” and chastised the new district attorney for not pursuing an indictment.
Two top prosecutors on the Manhattan district attorney’s criminal investigation of Trump, Mark Pomerantz and Carey Dunne, abruptly left last month amid allegations that the probe into the former president’s finances was faltering.
Alvin Bragg, the newly elected district attorney, was said to be more doubtful than his predecessor that the evidence obtained by his office’s attorneys against Trump would be sufficient to prosecute him.
Pomerantz wrote in a February resignation letter obtained by the New York Times that the team of lawyers investigating Trump had “no doubt” that he had “committed crimes,” and that Bragg’s decision not to prosecute Trump “will doom any future prospects for Mr Trump being prosecuted for the criminal conduct we have been investigating.”
“His financial statements were fake,” Pomerantz allegedly wrote, “and he has a lengthy history of misrepresenting information relative to his personal finances and lying about his holdings to banks, the national media, counterparties, and many others, including the American people.”
The case against Trump is running out of time, since the current term of the grand jury considering evidence concludes in April.
According to the Guardian, Trump’s lawyer, Ronald Fischetti, said the resignation letter simply showed the prosecuting team’s failure to construct a compelling legal case against his client, defining his client’s “innocence.”
“Pomerantz met with Alvin Bragg, the district attorney, and his senior staff on multiple occasions to spell out exactly what he wanted to bring before the grand jury in order to obtain an indictment, but he failed,” Fischetti said. “He was unable to persuade the District Attorney and his senior staff that he had enough evidence to sustain an indictment.”
“Mr. Bragg should be applauded for not doing this on the basis of politics, but rather on the basis of the law, as he is required to do,” Fischetti added.
While the resignation letter acknowledged that getting the case against Trump to court could be difficult and that there were “risks,” it maintained that there was a great public interest in prosecuting Trump “even if a conviction is not assured.”
Former Manhattan district attorney Cy Vance had “ordered the team to present evidence to a grand jury and to seek an indictment of Mr Trump and other individuals as soon as practically practicable,” according to Pomerantz, but Bragg, who was sworn in this January, reviewed the case and did not agree.
Bragg’s decision not to seek an indictment against Trump, according to Pomerantz, was “taken in good faith” but also “misguided and entirely detrimental to the public interest.”
A request for comment from Pomerantz was not returned.
In an email, Danielle Filson, a spokesperson for the district attorney, said, “The investigation continues.” “Every day, a team of competent prosecutors works to ensure that the facts and the law are followed. At this time, there is nothing we can or should say about an ongoing inquiry.”