EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., is introducing a resolution on Tuesday to hold lawyer Mark Pomerantz in contempt of Congress for his “frivolous” behavior before the GOP-run House subcommittee on government weaponization.
Pomerantz was one of the lawyers investigating former President Donald Trump under Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, though he left the investigation more than a year ago and wrote in his resignation letter,”The team that has been investigating Mr. Trump harbors no doubt about whether he committed crimes — he did.”
The House Judiciary Committee grilled him last month for roughly six hours amid their oversight probe into Bragg’s investigation – though Republicans fumed over his refusal to answer any substantive questions.
“He lobbied his way onto a prosecutorial team as a private lawyer. He did all he could to gaslight charges against Donald Trump. When the evidence didn’t support those charges, he initially got miffed and quit the team and wrote a book about it,” Gaetz told Fox News Digital. “Now, he has the nerve to assert his Fifth Amendment privilege over these matters when he has clearly explicitly and repeatedly waived that privilege. Contempt is proper where someone refuses to answer Congress’s questions under a frivolous assertion.”
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Asked about whether House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is supportive of the contempt resolution, Gaetz appeared to reference that McCarthy agreed to a one-member motion-to-vacate threshold in order to win his gavel earlier this year.
“I think right now his principal goal is to remain Speaker,” Gaetz said. “Speaker McCarthy has been really strong on oversight matters to date, and I hope and expect it to continue.”
Bragg’s probe saw Trump indicted on 34 felony counts linked to hush money payments made out to porn star Stormy Daniels, who said she had an extramarital affair with the former president in 2006, and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
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Trump’s Republican allies in Congress have decried the investigation as a political hit job, even going so far as to travel to New York City for a hearing on violent crime to make a point about Bragg’s priorities as a prosecutor.
Pomerantz called the GOP’s interest in the matter “an act of political theater” when he appeared before House lawmakers last month.
He reportedly invoked the Fifth Amendment in order to not violate any rules on confidential information. But the testimony came months after Pomerantz released a tell-all book about his time in Bragg’s office titled, “People Vs. Donald Trump: An Inside Account.”
According to the contempt resolution text obtained by Fox News Digital, Gaetz noted that Pomerantz pleaded the fifth for questions such as “Do you respect Alvin Bragg?”
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Gaetz’s text also claims Pomerantz waived his right to the Fifth when he asserted to GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., also a member of the committee, that the contents of his tell-all book were true.
“I’ve talked to a lot of my colleagues on the weaponization subcommittee, and I’ll allow them to speak for themselves, but many agree that the Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination were waived once Pomerantz defended the veracity of his book in response to questions from Congresswoman Stefanik,” Gaetz said. “I mean, Pomerantz pled the fifth when we asked him if he broke any laws while participating in the Trump investigation. We deserve an answer to that question.”
Trump ally Steve Bannon was charged by a grand jury with two counts of contempt of Congress last July for his failure to comply with a subpoena from the now-defunct select committee investigating the January 6 attack.