A former federal prosecutor from the storied Southern District of New York (SDNY) is calling on newly-elected Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to resign over reports he personally quashed the high-profile criminal fraud investigation into Donald Trump, leading the case’s two top prosecutors to resign in frustration.
Richard Signorelli, who served as an assistant U.S. Attorney at SDNY on Monday called Bragg “not competent” and said he “is a threat to our public safety.”
Bragg, who also once served as an assistant U.S. Attorney at SDNY, took office January 1.
He “has violated the public trust and should resign,” says Signorelli, who adds that “Trump is the priority case.”
On Tuesday Signorelli doubled down, slamming U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and Deputy AG Lisa Monaco.
“By not prosecuting this career criminal, you enable him,” he charged:
The two prosecutors who were brought in to lead the Trump investigation, Carey Dunne and Mark Pomerantz, “resigned after an unnecessary, month-long pause in the team’s interactions with a special grand jury," The New York Times reported last week.
“The duo had grown frustrated that the newly elected DA—Alvin Bragg Jr.—wouldn’t read memos about the case for weeks at a time, and seemed to ditch plans to eventually indict former President Donald Trump himself, according to The Washington Post.”
The Daily Beast adds, “not only did Dunne and Pomerantz write resignation letters, they wrote so extensively about the slow-moving probe that the DA’s office would not turn over copies of their letters.” It calls Pomerantz “a cunning investigator who gained recognition in 1999 for successfully prosecuting John Gotti’s son, John A. Gotti, who followed in his father’s footsteps and eventually became the head of the Gambino crime family.”
Last week a former top Justice Department official declared the Manhattan district attorney’s case against Trump effectively “dead” after the resignations of the two top prosecutors. On Friday Reuters reported Bragg’s office announced a new prosecutor has been put in charge of the case.
Article reprinted with permission from Alternet
