This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies in for Terry Rose. Our guest today, Mark Pomerance, has written

an insider's account of the year he and others at the Manhattan District Attorney's office

spent on a criminal investigation of Donald Trump's finances and business practices. Pomerance

was a retired prosecutor and lawyer in December 2020 when he was invited to join then-DA Cyrus

Vance's team looking into Trump. In his book, Pomerance calls the investigation the legal

equivalent of a plane crash, where the principal cause was pilot error. At the end of 2021, as

District Attorney Vance approached retirement, Pomerance felt the team had sufficient evidence to

file felony charges against Trump, but the newly elected District Attorney Alvin Bragg wasn't ready

to proceed with charges, so Pomerance and another senior attorney resigned. Their departures made

news, and Pomerance wrote in his resignation letter that not bringing a case against Trump was a

grave failure of justice. His new book is a fascinating look at Trump's financial manipulations and

the hush money payment to adult film star stormy Daniels and prosecutors' consideration of whether

they amounted to crimes provable in court. Pomerance's book has generated controversy. District

Attorney Bragg has said that Pomerance violated his obligation not to disclose information about

the investigation without written permission, and Bragg implied that the book has damaged the

ongoing investigation. Meanwhile, it's been reported that the DA's office has recently been

presenting evidence to a grand jury about the stormy Daniels payment, indicating that the office

may now be considering criminal charges against Trump. Mark Pomerance's legal career includes a

clerkship at the United States Supreme Court, stints as prosecutor and as chief of the criminal

division of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, and many years

of criminal defense work. His new book is People vs. Donald Trump in Inside Account. Mark Pomerance

welcome to fresh air. Thank you so much. I'm glad to be here. All right, so let's talk about the

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