Two prosecutors leading the Manhattan district attorney’s yearslong criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump and the Trump Organization’s business practices resigned Wednesday.
Prosecutors Carey R. Dunne and Mark F. Pomerantz submitted their resignations after the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, expressed doubts about moving forward with a case examining allegations of tax evasion and fraud, The New York Times reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter.
A spokesperson for the DA’s office told HuffPost it was “grateful” for Dunne’s and Pomerantz’s service and said the Trump investigation remains ongoing. The office declined further comment.
Bragg, a former federal prosecutor who was elected to office last fall, had previously pledged to personally focus on the investigation into Trump’s business practices and had said he might expand the probe. This was before he had been briefed on the facts of the case.
The DA’s office has been investigating the Trump Organization since 2018, when Trump’s former personal attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen, began volunteering information about his former boss while facing his own criminal investigation. That probe ultimately ended with Cohen receiving a three-year jail sentence.
New York Attorney General Letitia James is also leading a civil investigation into the Trump Organization’s business practices and has also assigned two of her office’s lawyers to work with the Manhattan DA’s office on its criminal investigation. Her investigation also remains ongoing as of Wednesday.
Pomerantz, a former prominent federal prosecutor, was recruited to help with the DA’s investigation early last year due to his background in investigating and defending white-collar and organized crime cases. Dunne became former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance’s general counsel shortly after the 2016 presidential election. Prior to this, he was a senior partner with Davis Polk & Wardwell, a New York law firm that defends Wall Street banks and global corporations.
A day before the prosecutors resigned, lawyers for Trump’s longtime finance chief, Allen Weisselberg, asked a judge to toss tax fraud charges against Weisselberg in relation to the Manhattan DA’s investigation.
Weisselberg has pleaded not guilty to charges that he collected more than $1.7 million in off-the-books compensation, including apartment rent, car payments and school tuition, with the Trump Organization. He has claimed that he is being unfairly targeted by the DA’s office because he refused to turn on Trump and his businesses. Prosecutors are expected to respond to his request in the coming weeks.