Trump's criminal lawyer slams ex-Manhattan prosecutor Mark Pomerantz's Trump probe book as 'inaccurate'
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- Trump criminal lawyer Ron Fischetti criticized a tell-all by his former law partner, Mark Pomerantz.
- Pomerantz is wrong to blame Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg for not indicting Trump last year, Fischetti says.
- Pomerantz is a former lead prosecutor in the DA's probe and author of "People vs. Donald Trump."
Donald Trump's New York criminal lawyer, Ron Fischetti, has joined the many critics of a new book about the Manhattan district attorney's investigation into the former president's business dealings.
"I don't think he should have written this book at all," Fischetti told Insider of former prosecutor Mark Pomerantz, whose book, "People vs. Donald Trump," was published this month.
"It is a factually inaccurate, one-sided view of his experience," Fischetti said of Pomerantz, his law partner for six years in the mid-1980s. They were also close friends, Fischetti told Insider.
"This is no longer the Mark Pomerantz I once knew and loved," he said.
Pomerantz resigned in protest as lead prosecutor a year ago after a new district attorney, Alvin Bragg, hit the brakes on the investigation.
"This is a terrible, terrible book," Fischetti said, taking Pomerantz to task for criticizing Bragg's caution and for speaking publicly about a confidential probe that's still in progress. "What the hell was he thinking?"
In his book, Pomerantz wrote that there is ample evidence Trump built his real-estate empire "through a pattern of criminal activity," including by allegedly routinely lying about the value of his properties in financial documents he submitted to lenders, insurers, and tax authorities.
New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Trump over those allegations in September. Her $250 million lawsuit seeks to bar Trump, his three eldest children, and the Trump Organization from doing business in the state. The civil case is scheduled for trial in October.
Pomerantz's book blames Bragg and other balky senior prosecutors for disbanding a sitting grand jury mere weeks after taking office in January 2022. He believes they should have continued seeking an indictment.
The book acknowledges that some top prosecutors in the district attorney's office, not just Bragg, questioned the strength of the case and felt it wasn't ready.
But Fischetti told Insider that Pomerantz should have focused his book instead on Bragg's predecessor, former DA Cyrus Vance, who presided over the investigation into Trump's business dealings for three years before passing the torch at the start of 2022.
"If the evidence compiled by Pomerantz was as explosive and damning as he claims, why did former DA Vance not bring an indictment?" Fischetti asked.
"Pomerantz expected DA Bragg to bring charges immediately, at his demand. But Pomerantz's investigation fell short," Fischetti added.
"He had not developed or presented a case that could be brought and proved beyond a reasonable doubt."
Pomerantz also should have known better than to publicly question Bragg's decision to slow the probe, Fischetti said.
As the former head of the criminal division in the US attorney's office in Manhattan, Pomerantz was once responsible for deciding if federal prosecutions moved forward or ended.
Pomerantz would have been outraged if his own decisions had been publicly questioned in tell-all books by former staffers, Fischetti said.
"Bragg was a highly-experienced prosecutor, elected by the voters, and in charge of the DA's office, and he makes the ultimate decision whether or not to go forward, nobody else," he said.
Pomerantz did not respond to requests for comment left with his law firm and publisher.
The prosecutor-turned-author has said he stands behind his book, recently telling New York Magazine that he remains disappointed with Bragg's decision not to move forward, and explaining that he wrote the book because he believed the public deserved an explanation.
That same New York Magazine story cited several sources who confirmed that members of Pomerantz's team believed he was overly optimistic about the readiness and strength of the case.
Vance declined to comment on Fischetti's criticisms.
But under Vance's administration, the probe into Trump's financial dealings faced several monumental and unforeseen delays.
These included the COVID-19 pandemic and a year-and-a-half-long court battle with Trump to acquire his tax records, according to Pomerantz's book and people familiar with the probe who spoke to Insider on condition of anonymity.
The prosecution team also spent many months preparing an important offshoot case, the July 2021 tax fraud indictment of the Trump Organization and its former CFO, Allen Weisselberg.
That case was successfully tried under Bragg's administration. In January, the Trump Organization was sentenced to pay a $1.6 million fine. Weisselberg remains behind bars after being sentenced in January to five months for his role in the tax fraud.
Meanwhile, Bragg has re-energized the probe since Pomerantz's departure by adding prosecutor Matthew Colangelo to his team. Colangelo is a former senior lawyer in Letitia James's investigation and also helmed former New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood's successful lawsuit against the Trump Foundation.
A grand jury is currently hearing evidence related to Trump's alleged involvement in a "hush money" payment to Stormy Daniels. The adult film actress received the $130,000 payment in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign, when she was about to publicly claim she'd had an affair with Trump.
Fischetti — a criminal defense attorney for five decades, and who has repped Trump since 2021 — says he is ready to aggressively defend the former president if Bragg brings an indictment in Manhattan.
Bragg had fought the book's publication on non-disclosure agreement grounds, and insists that more work was needed before any Trump indictment could be brought.
He has also taken some not-so veiled shots at Pomerantz, saying in a statement that he has not read "People vs. Donald Trump" and that the investigation is getting on quite well without the new author.
"I do hope there is at least one section," Bragg said of the book, "where Mr. Pomerantz recognizes his former colleagues for how much they have achieved on the Trump matter over the last year since his departure."
Pomeranz's book has also been criticized by the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys and in a joint letter by the National Urban League, former NYS Governor David Paterson, former NYS Comptroller H. Carl McCall, and state NAACP President Hazel Dukes.
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