i am honored to introduce mark pomerantz to all of you. mark received a b.a. from harvard college and a j.d. from the university of michigan law school. he worked as a federal prosecutor in the u.s. attorney's office for the southern of new york. he has also been on the faculty of columbia law school and has lectured on criminal procedure and white collar law at harvard and stanford law school's. and from february. 2021 to february 2022, he worked pro-bono a special assistant district attorney in the office of the new york district attorney cyrus vance, to assist with that office's criminal investigation into the personal and business finances of former president donald trump. this evening will talk about his new book, the people versus donald trump and this riveting work of nonfiction. pomeranz tells the story of his unprecedented investigation, why he believes donald trump should be prosecuted, and what we can learn about the nature of justice in america from extraordinary case. mark will be in conversation session with robert costa. robert is the chief elec

six years. >> i wanted to read in part -- this is something jim jordanÑi said in his letter to mark pomerantzto get here? it's not like pomerantz quit because hexd thought trump was innocent. you obviously have seen a lot of the stuff against donald tru(>y not particularlyq in this case but just generally through the first impeachment. i'm curious to get your thoughts i hope mark pomerantz comes in and testifies in the subcommittee on the so-called weaponization of the federal government. it would not be testimony that jim jordan would like. it also demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what has transpired in the district attorney's office. that was a very different case that my$÷■ pomerantz recommende to alvin bragg that mr. bragg prosecute. and mr. bragg rejected that recommendation and decided not to prosecute donald trump and at the time many trump defenders lauded mr. bragg as alúqp'q of virtue and doing the right thing. now on a very different case that took a little more time to develop mr.e1Ñi bragg appears r to go forward and charging him. and all of a sudden those people wh

author of >> mark pomerantz, author of "the people v. donald trump," former federal prosecutor, former special assistant district the attorney, new york county. thank you veryy much for joining us here at politics & prose. thank youyo to politics & prose, and for everyone watching on c-span, we appreciate it. >> books are available back at the registers, the signing line will start right behind me, and please are remember to fold up your chairs and lean them against shelf, thank you. >> recently on booktv, afghanistan war veteran jason kander who served in the missouri state legislature and as missouri's secretary of state the, talked about living with ptsd and how it affected his 2018 run for mayor of kansas city. his book is "unvisible storm." -- invisible. here's some of what he said. >> but i, once i'd come to that point, i just kind of felt like, god, i've waited almost 11 years because i didn't feel like i earned it, i didn't feel like i could have had ptsk, and i just thought -- i kind of wished somebody in being really up front a

and mark pomerantz wrote it about bragg.ne point, alvin bragg commented that he could not see a world in which we would indict trump and call cohen as a prosecution witness. >> to stake a case solely on the word of michael cohen on the key issue of did donald trump know about and authorize the false booking. if you base that solely on michael cohen, you are asking for trouble. there is one example that we just he did from mark pomerantz. but if you go beyond that, cohen has been convicted of perjury. he was convicted of financial fraud and tax fraud for himself. he also said the exact opposite back in 2018. he told the fec these payments were entirely nonpolitical, entirely legal. so, he is going to be a very problematic witness. >> absolutely. now, stephanie, look, you've got lawyers casting doubt on this. but that's in the legal scheme. obviously politically here this is a whole 'nother thing. you got voted in d.a. to office and you've got politicians swirling around. republicans are accusing bragg of pursuing this for pol

mark pomerantz. yes to indict donald trump a year ago, and at the time, many republican supporters of donald trump said, oh what a virtuous and valuable rule of law follower. he is that he didn't indict now that he's indicting on a different case. all of a sudden, he's a partisan hack. you can't have it both ways completely different cases, sort of half of the case of pomerantz was talking. don't know about fair enough. we don't by the way its power its case was a valuations case about his erties about insurance fraud about was part of it. that was that was that was a big part of it. but let me ask you about because you yourself congressman have said that this case it hush money payments and the accounting of them is not is not the most dangerous case of former president faces. if this is what our reporting indicates , and if this would put federal charges on stop on top of a state charges you're in a state crime. it is uncharted legal territory. how high is a prosecutor with your knowledge? how diff

that's what led to two prosecutors including mark pomerantz, mark pomerantz even writing a book essentially questioning the decision of d.a. bragg not to bring charges. it was not until this january when a new grand jury was impanelled by the district attorney to specifically look at this case involving the payments to stormy daniels that has now amounted to apparently an invitation to donald trump to go before this grand jury in a potential of indictments against him. >> let me go back to his statements, tali, and tick through some of what trump said, denying he ever had an affair with stormy daniels. he said he relied on counsel to resolve what he describes as extortion. he said even that the statute of limitations had run out. does any of that amount to a real offense? >> the first part denying the affair with stormy daniels is very useful to prosecutors. if he were ever to testify in the grand jury or in a trial, they can ask him about that and really expose his lack of credibility around that. i mean, that's a factual issue on which they have lots of evidence. you know, some of the oth

you have mark pomerantz who looked at this casestance instance can't agree with the mechanism. you have mark pomerantz who looked at this case and said the failure to prosecute and if you are waved off of doing something because it is novel or difficult, that is inherently creating two standards of justice. how do you see this moment in our country where there is a lot of anxiety about how trump's base will react if he is finally charged frankly with everything that we've learned about fox news, i don't think that they will either see it or know about it, but regardless, how do you -- what are you feeling sort of with your political ten catas about this moment? >> i think andrew broke it down well. but the legal decision to prosecute is like playing checkers. the politics is chess. and i don't want to play checkses with donald trump because i'm concerned that you go indict this by on a low level charge or one you can't prove and you will make him stronger. so i'm very concerned that if this is going to be the first legal case against them, that they nail him to the wall with it

mark pomerantz released a whol book, condemning that decision resigning from the office.here's a lot of legitimate, serious questions about this those are very separate from the charges that we should seek. >> and the trial that we may see. the trial will have evidence >> this is a situation where you have two things to it once question about why took so long, what led to the process, but also there could be very wel legitimacy, and ultimately it'll be up to a jury to decide the political into this, the part part for under, santo mike, pence others they watched this play out, is ted, cruz back in may 2016, was there. he called donald trump, amoral a serial philanderer a republican rival of donald trump's already tried that before and guess what it didn't work. republicans a majority of them -- this time around that's th question potentially could the guilty charge sought that >> so everything that everyone -- i think i saw don bacon saying why don't we see how this play a. -- that's the one republican i've seen who's not said, one o those things that i said earlier, about

one could speculate that there is public criticism of bragg after mark pomerantz published his book.bviously there has been a lot of publicity about georgia maybe being the first with fani willis's investigation to indict trump. but we don't know. alvin bragg in the past has not shown any appetite for taking on trump when they had inherited the case from cyrus vance and bragg apparently killed the case. he went after the organization and took a weak plea from weisselberg, but now he seems interested in pursuing a case that has been languagiish lanlang lang wishing. so the sudden interest is mysterious. >> and another important part of this case is michael cohen. if they were to indict the president, he would be a big part of this case. we know that he is a convicted liar. but you've pointed out correctly that plenty of times cooperating witnesses have complicated pasts, previous convictions. but i also want to ask you in addition to being a convicted liar, for the past five years michael cohen has run to every camera available to disparage his former boss. is that going to be a probl

be prepared for that he has been on the air making his points a lot of them that he got from mark pomerantz'sook. this is a defensible case because there may be an issue as to whether or not new york can use a federal election law violation as a predicate they won't be prosecuting it so much they kind of will. because they're going to be using it to bump up what would ordinarily be a misdemeanor to a felony falsification of records is a default misdemeanor. it's document heavy. we have seen the checks, the agreements between david dennison and patty peterson or whatever the phony names were. that's probably easier to make the misdemeanor. to bump it up to a felony, they need it to be in furtherance or conceal some additional crime. if it's a federal election law violation, then it's going to be an interesting legal issue whether or not new york can even use that, whether or not they have to prove it or whether or not they can prove it because it is federal law expect the defense to move to even throw that out. if they do, if all those felony counts get thrown out and it's reduced to a misdeme

separately, the committee is now has the same from 2 former manhattan prosecutors, mark pomerantz and carey dunne who reportedly left the da's office citing brags initial reluctance to prosecute. the former president brags team breaking its silence. reading back to the committee, quote, your letter is an unprecedented inquiry into a pending local prosecution. the letter only came after donald trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested the next day and his lawyers reportedly urged you to intervene. congressman tom tiffany of the house judiciary committee telling news nation's marni hughes thursday. he believes needs to explain himself. so so he's saying that. >> were inserting ourselves into new york's sovereignty while he's inserting himself into a national political race and the presidential race on top of it coming answer the questions, mister bragg. it is still unclear if any more witnesses must testify after last hearing from robert costello. >> brought in to discredit the 45th president's former fixer, michael cohen, 12 of 23 grand jurors would have to vote in fa

i am honored to introduce mark pomerantz to all of you. mark received a b.a.from harvard college and a j.d. from the university of michigan law school. he worked as a federal prosecutor in the u.s.

separately, the committee is now has the same from 2 former manhattan prosecutors, mark pomerantz and carey dunne who reportedly left the da's office citing brags initial reluctance to prosecute the former president bragg's team breaking its silence. reading back to the committee, quote, your letter is an unprecedented inquiry into a pending local prosecution. the letter only came after donald trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested the next day and his lawyers reportedly urged you to intervene. congressman tom tiffany of the house judiciary explain so he's saying that. >> were inserting ourselves into new york's sovereignty while he's inserting himself into a national political race and the presidential race on top of it coming answer the questions, mister bragg. it is still unclear if any more witnesses must testify after last hearing from robert costello. >> brought in to discredit the 45th president's former fixer, michael cohen, 12 of 23 grand jurors would have to vote in favor of an indictment to hand one down. >> grand juries generally do what the prosecutor

mark pomerantz, one of the prosecutors involved i developing that case - he resigned over all of thiseading this if you are a student of this, just to understand it better but that's the one question have and we may learn about it more if this is advancing to an indictment >> matthew, let me ask you about this speaker mccarthy, this morning promised to use houses power the peoples house and all th power that it commands to investigate the manhattan district attorney. this is a guy they didn't have to tweet anything out today, it's not an official indictment, there is no indictment, ther is no actual news, there is no it's - president on his social medi posting what he thinks is goin to happen. and the speaker of the house the person third in line second in line to th presidency, jumps in and say he's going to use the power of his agency, the congress, to investigate the manhatta district attorney. why? >> i mean, i actually thin what speaker mccarthy did is far worse than the posting o donald trump and we've talked about - >> i have agree with you i agree with you i think it's shamefu

so first of all, mark pomerantz is a committed public citizen. he has done great work in the d.a.'fice. he did a lot of this under cyrus vance who was the manhattan d.a. before alvin bragg and under whom most of this investigation proceeded. if there was a failure to push this forward to an indictment, it stands to reason that it could have been made against cyrus vance, not just alvin bragg. now that we have a situation where alvin bragg seems to be moving forward, it would be the case that he must think that he can prove these charges beyond a reasonable doubt. the government is held to an incredibly high standard. under that high standard many prosecutors would balk unless they are absolutely sure they can make their case out before a jury. i think we will see this play out. whether this is being done and will be done and completed i think it's safe to say alvin bragg would not rest his entire career on something that was merely a whim or something undu in political service. he has to make out a high standard because that's required of the government. >> yeah, as you say, that's

of manhattan until mark pomerantz who worked in his office for a free writes a book and violation ofhics saying that -- using evidence we learn from the d.a.'s office that donald trump deserves to be indicted. this is a highly unusual theory that can't pass judicial muster, number one, it's a misdemeanor, falsifying a business record, that is a statute of limitation of two years. so what they say is we want to make this a felony, how are you going to make this a felony? you're going to bootstrap a federal crime to send the statute of limitations five years, but that still be on the statute of limitations, plus how does a state prosecutor get the right to prosecute a federal crime? who gives that person jurisdiction? it's not within his bailing weights, and how does brad take a state law and turn it into a federal law? he is not the legislature, so what we've got is did donald trump by paying michael cohen, the hundred $30,000 that he owed him because he paid stormy daniels the hush money, and by the way, that is done every day, folks. it's called a nondisclosure agreement, you pay so

part of the reason it kept resurrecting back from the dead, at least according to the book of mark pomerantz who was the former special prosecutor who worked on this case. the reason it kept coming back, they thought it had jury appeal, they thought the facts were simple they thought they could tell a simple story and get a conviction the problem was that legal hook. they couldn't figure out how to get it to a felony they commissioned outside law firms to research it, to try to figure it out, and the previous district attorney cy vance couldn't get there because they passed on it, that's why you hear the president say no one ever wanted to prosecute this. it's a dead case it doesn't mean bragg didn't find something else. he opened a new grand jury they heard different testimony they heard from witnesses. they collected documents, they subpoenaed things. we just don't know what else he has. at this point without seeing the actual document, it's really too early to prejudge. >> let's take it to mar-a-lago, and dasha, do we have any clues about what's going on behind closed doors there >> repor

fellow giulietta lozano, who is the head of the major economics crime bureau said and said mike mark pomerantz, facebook page 1 59. she could never imagine calling michael cohen as a witness on any subject because she did not trust anything he ever said. that's pretty strong former attorney in the da's office for audience who may not know who that is. go ahead. so michael cohen is known to everybody as a witness that you're going to have to corroborate because he has a conviction for lying to congress. he has other convictions and so that whatever bob costello said to the grand jury was not news to the grand jury. everybody knows that michael cohen, he does paint a very colorful picture of the of the people surrounding trump in the circumstances. in fact, he himself said he wrote the playbook for trump of how you go, and you do things that are underhanded or are illegal, frankly. and so he provides the color, but there are documents. there are other witnesses and for my for castello to say that he didn't have an opportunity to say what he wanted to say in the grand jury. he was in there for al

we were in the wrong room with mark pomerantz, who was the lead prosecutor, but i just wanted to correct the record if he was talking about the southern district prosecutors and when he charges michael cohen with all these personal attack words, he should at least complete the sentence with one other fact, which is everything that michael cohen did, but for the tax charges were at the direction and for the exclusive benefit of donald trump. now, how could he not add that fact, it's like, he said. one thing, he said, is that this is based upon the testimony of a person or a couple of individuals right now , i did say that there's been an indication and certainly you've given that that there's been documents to back all of the it's up. yes confident are you that that this case does not rely on michael cohen. very because everybody was all due respect to the gentleman and everybody else who's on cnn are all speculating. i know. in the room what we did day after day after day, hours after hours after hours and what we did with michael is to look over specific documents that speak. so you're

. >> i want to ask you about attacks that i know really bother you of your credibility mark pomerantzle to achieve that pretty easily with his multiple meetings with you. alvin bragg clearly, whether it was a perception that predated his active phase of this investigation or something he encountered, i don't know, you are welcome to illuminate me, clearly your testimony was deemed credible by mark, who led the investigation into these matters under vance and by bragg, if you are as everyone speculates, the final witness or one of the final witnesses in front of the grand jury. again as being able to attest to your credibility, i want to give you a chance to respond to anyone who questions is. >> i don't care about those who want to question my credibility. it wasn't just alvin bragg's office that acknowledges the accuracy and truthfulness of the statements i provided. it's not just the attorney general who did that it's not just members of congress who i testified -- i testified six or seven times before congress. it's also the mueller team anybody that wants to attack my credibility,

it's hard to remember, this is the da who rejected the mark pomerantz in treaty a year ago to go forwardng the case is not ready so that is a sign that he is not doing this for politics, but is really deciding on th merits is there enough proof here but we will see. but i think that we should b very, very conscious that this is likely to come down ver soon >> andrew, we shall be vigilant so let's take the step and suggest that the infant that meant does happen. walk us through the difference because this demeanor could be a felony there has to be somethin established to make it a felony and just by what you know of the evidence, indictment is on thing, do you think it's stron enough for a potential conviction >> great questions so there is a real complicatio on the issue of how this could get charged under state law. there is a very strong misdemeanor which means that you can only go to jail for up to a year. honestly, it's missed by the fact that it's called misdemeanor. that it's not as serious as an felony and that misdemeanor is fallin a false business record. the predication for tha

through all of the dirt and scum and mess of the last six years and understand and ascertain, it is mark pomerantztwo standards of prosecuting a normal person and donald trump. it is judge barrel howell talking about writing in a previously sealed decision the creation of super citizens. it is about what has already happened. trump has already created a separate standard of justice for himself. and neal, the damage that's been done to our -- to the rule of law in america has already been done. we are not talking about future damage. we are not talking about donald trump's next term, which if we're telling the truth to our viewers, is still a very likely scenario. he sits atop the republican field. we live in a highly polarized country. fox news has been revealed as lying to its viewers. as a model it has no plans to deviate from. this is where we are today. that's why everything i've asked about today is the today risk, the today threat. carol's story reveals the today status of the fbi that in june, after being handed a set of documents by some bozo lawyer, and the fbi knows the bozos from the go

alvin bragg and all alvin bragg did was conduct an investigation after fdny, after cy vance, mark pomerantz matching their conclusion. i think there is this dissonance between what trump likes to say and likes to target democrats, but his own doem found the same crimes to be committed. we need to sneak in a break. there's much more to get to because when it's trump and investigations, it's never ending. don't go anywhere. when it comes to reducing sugar in your family's diet, the more choices, the better. that's why america's beverage companies are working together to deliver more great tasting options with less sugar or no sugar at all. in fact, today, nearly 60% of beverages sold contain zero sugar. different sizes? check. clear calorie labels? just check. with so many options, it's easier than ever to find the balance that's right for you. more choices. less sugar. balanceus.org i have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. now, there's skyrizi. ♪♪ with skyrizi, most people who achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months... had lasting clearance through 1 year. serious allergic reactions and an

the ones chanting lock her up, and now that their candidate is there -- remember, mark pomerantz wrotees to people not inside the maga bubble. >> john, you said this past fall you were offered a chance to work and represent former president donald trump and you declined that opportunity. tell us now, if you will, give us your assessment of this case, and in particular where you think things stand and what last-minute wrinkles from the costello testimony may occur? >> i will walk in the lion's deny and disagree with my good friend, dave, and you, joe, also. having gone through watergate, i believe to my core nobody is above the law. nobody is saying no matter how much one dislikes donald trump, not in the court of the public opinion, but in the legal arena he is titled to the presumption of innocence. some of the cases that joe recited, i have not had a chance to look at those because they are newly reported, but i don't think those were elevated to a felony in what "the new york times" is calling an untested legal theory. what i believe -- you mentioned i turned down respectfully repre