Ex-Bragg attorney to publish "People v. Donald Trump"

Trump is never going to pay for his crimes.  Never.

Donald J. Trump grew his business, fortune and fame “through a pattern of criminal activity,” according to a new book by a veteran prosecutor, who reveals that the Manhattan district attorney’s office once considered charging the former president with racketeering, a law often used against the Mafia.

The prosecutor, Mark F. Pomerantz, resigned in protest early last year after the newly elected district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, decided not to seek an indictment of Mr. Trump at that time.

[...]

Pomerantz had mapped out a wide-ranging possible case against the former president under the state racketeering law, according to the soon-to-be published book, “People vs. Donald Trump.”

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“He demanded absolute loyalty and would go after anyone who crossed him. He seemed always to stay one step ahead of the law,” Mr. Pomerantz, a prominent litigator who has prosecuted and defended organized crime cases, writes of Mr. Trump. “In my career as a lawyer, I had encountered only one other person who touched all of these bases: John Gotti, the head of the Gambino organized crime family.”

A lawyer for Mr. Trump recently sent Mr. Pomerantz a letter threatening that, “If you publish such a book and continue making defamatory statements against my clients, my office will aggressively pursue all legal remedies.”

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The book, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, is a chronicle of the complicated and circuitous investigation, which produced charges against Mr. Trump’s longtime chief financial officer and his family business, but has yet to yield formal accusations against the former president himself.

  NYT

This strikes me as a very bad idea if Pomerantz really wanted Trump to be held to account.  I would expect it to be grounds for Trump's lawyers to claim he can't get a fair trial if Bragg brings charges for anything, not just the Trump Organization crimes.

Pomerantz’s book arrives as the investigation is ramping up once again, with prosecutors impaneling a new grand jury to hear evidence about Mr. Trump’s role in paying hush money to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, during the 2016 presidential campaign.

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Mr. Bragg’s administration, which has raised ethical and legal concerns about Mr. Pomerantz’s revealing details of the inquiry, is also applying additional pressure on the former chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg, seeking to secure his cooperation against the former president.

Well, he can kiss that idea goodbye.

Mr. Pomerantz’s book offers new details about the evidence he and other prosecutors had assembled, including information provided by a bank employee who had approved financing for Mr. Trump’s company.

[...]

Mr. Pomerantz blames Mr. Bragg for being too slow to get up to speed on the case after he was elected in November 2021.

So, he's just made it exponentially harder for Bragg to do anything at all. Perhaps Bragg started things up again knowing the book was coming, out and he could avoid actually charging Trump by saying Pomerantz ruined it for him.

The book’s description of conversations between Mr. Pomerantz and Mr. Bragg’s team could arguably complicate the investigation. In particular, Mr. Pomerantz detailed Mr. Bragg’s opposition to using Michael D. Cohen, a longtime fixer for Mr. Trump who turned on the former president, as a witness, an awkward disclosure now that Mr. Cohen may become one of Mr. Bragg’s star witnesses.

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At a meeting, Mr. Pomerantz writes, one of Mr. Bragg’s senior prosecutors played a recording of a recent media appearance Mr. Cohen made in which he crowed about his importance as a witness in the case. The disclosures could provide ammunition to Mr. Trump’s lawyers as they attack Mr. Cohen’s credibility.

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Mr. Bragg’s office recently sent a letter to Mr. Pomerantz and his publisher, Simon & Schuster, saying that the author had been obligated to obtain permission from the office before publicizing certain information about the investigation, and that he had not done so.

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“This office believes there is a meaningful risk that the publication will materially prejudice ongoing criminal investigations,” the letter said, adding that were Mr. Pomerantz to reveal grand jury material, he could be charged with a felony because such information is by law secret, and that profiting from his work as a public servant in New York City might also be illegal.

In response, Simon & Schuster said that it stood behind the book, and Mr. Pomerantz writes in the book that he did not “prejudice any investigation or prosecution of Donald Trump” or reveal grand jury information.

And I'm sick of hearing Merrick Garland and Democratic politicians saying no one is above the law. We have eyes, fuckers.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 02/04/2023:

What can they threaten him with that they haven't already?  More jail time?  I don't think he's going to flip, no matter what.*  His family stands to lose whatever Trump is still providing them with.  His reputation is already ruined.  He won't flip.  And Pomerantz' book has made any threats seem less likely since it makes the case against Trump, et al., harder.

*UPDATE  02/07/2023:  I've just recently learned that Weisselberg is doing time in Rikers.  If he feels threatened with more jail time, I'm sure he AND his family will have reason to desire a deal.  Rikers is a notorious hell hole, generally considered one of, if not THE, worst prisons in the country.

Harry Litman and Andrew Weissmann, two former prosecutors, discuss the Pomerantz/Bragg situation here on YouTube: