A prosecutor investigating Donald Trump’s business dealings wrote last month that he thought there was “no doubt” the former president committed numerous felonies, according to a copy of his resignation letter obtained by The New York Times.
David Pomerantz, one of the senior prosecutors working on the investigation, wrote the letter on Feb. 23 after reportedly failing to convince Manhattan’s new district attorney, Alvin Bragg, to file criminal charges against Trump. The D.A.’s office has been looking into the Trump Organization’s business practices to determine if he falsely inflated his assets to obtain favorable bank loans.
Pomerantz and fellow lead prosecutor Carey Dunne resigned last month after Bragg stopped pursuing an indictment against Trump, throwing the years-long investigation into doubt. The pair had reportedly planned to charge Trump with falsifying business records, a dramatic move that would make him the first former president to be criminally charged.
“The team that has been investigating Mr. Trump harbors no doubt about whether he committed crimes — he did,” Pomerantz wrote in his letter, first obtained by the Times, adding that “no case was perfect.” “Whatever the risks of bringing the case may be, I am convinced that a failure to prosecute will pose much greater risks in terms of public confidence in the fair administration of justice.”
Read the full text of his letter at The New York Times.
Trump has vehemently denied any wrongdoing, and his attorney told the Times that Pomerantz had attempted to investigate the case and “failed.”
The Times reported earlier this month that Bragg, who took over the case from former District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., had doubts about the strength of the case, saying he worried there wasn’t enough evidence to show Trump willfully broke the law.
Bragg’s office has stressed the cases is ongoing. New York Attorney General Letitia James is also conducting a separate civil probe into Trump and his business. She said in January her office had uncovered “significant evidence” suggesting the former president “falsely and fraudulently valued multiple assets and misrepresented those values to financial institutions for economic benefit.”
Pomerantz wrote in his resignation that he strongly disagreed, saying he believed there was enough evidence to convict Trump “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
“There are always additional facts to be pursued,” he wrote last month. “But the investigative team that has been working on this matter for many months does not believe that it makes law enforcement sense to postpone a prosecution in the hope that additional evidence will somehow emerge.”