A tell-all book about the Manhattan district attorney's office investigation into Donald Trump could be held up by a nondisclosure agreement.
The Daily Beast obtained the NDA warning that “any work performed for the office” is “privileged and confidential," which could jeopardize publication of the book, People vs. Donald Trump: An Inside Account, written by former special assistant DA Mark Pomerantz -- one of two prosecutors who quit in protest when incoming district attorney Alvin Bragg shied way from indicting the former president.
"That indictment never happened," says publisher Simon & Schuster. "This book explains why."
The book, which is due out Feb. 7, gives an inside account of the three-year investigation by Manhattan district attorneys to show that Trump defrauded banks and insurers, lied about real estate values on financial forms, avoided corporate taxes and violated campaign laws by paying hush money to porn actress Stormy Daniels.
Bragg has recently won two tax fraud convictions against Trump companies and finance chief Allen Weisselberg, and has indicated he may revive the case against the former president, but his office is now trying to block the Pomerantz book from hitting store shelves.
The December 2020 employment contract warns that revealing information gathered from grand jury subpoenas could be "punishable as a felony," and a source familiar with the agreement questioned whether it still applied to Pomerantz after he was sworn in as a full district attorney in February 2021.
The district attorney's office has indicated publication would pose a “meaningful risk” to "an ongoing criminal investigation" into Trump, but Simon & Schuster issued a statement last week defending Pomerantz and vowing to publish the book on time.
Several sources with direct knowledge of the case told The Daily Beast they doubted that Pomerantz, an experienced prosecutor, would reveal details that would jeopardize the case and violate professional ethics rules, and some former Manhattan and Brooklyn prosecutors were confused why the district attorney's office would make him sign a nondisclosure agreement in the first place.
The book may end up pitting Bragg and Trump against one another in court, after New York attorney Joe Tacopina warned that he had been hired to set up a potential defamation case against Pomerantz -- which could force the district attorney and his team to testify as witnesses in that lawsuit.
