Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg says Trump prosecution isn’t about politics
NEW YORK — When he was elected Manhattan’s first black district attorney two years ago, Alvin Bragg spoke candidly about his discomfort with the political demands of the job. As a former law professor, he is more comfortable untangling complex legal issues than standing on a podium.
But when the first of Donald Trump’s four criminal charges goes to trial Monday, over alleged hush money payments to cover up a sex scandal during the 2016 election, Bragg will find himself at the center of a political maelstrom with few precedents.
Even before he announced the 34-felony indictment against Trump last year, Bragg was a lightning rod for conservative critics who said he wasn’t tough enough on crime. The upcoming trial will test the Democrat’s efforts to portray himself as apolitical, despite relentless attacks from Trump and his supporters, who say the prosecution is the epitome of partisanship.
Echoing the racist tropes he has often deployed against his legal opponents, Trump has called Bragg a “thug” and a “degenerate psychopath” and urged his supporters to take action against the “danger to our country.”
Bragg, who declined to be interviewed for this story, dismissed that, likening the prosecution against Trump to any other case of financial crime.
“At its core, today’s case is one of allegations like so many of our white-collar cases,” Bragg said in announcing the charges last year. “Someone has lied again and again to protect their interests and circumvent the laws to which we are all responsible.”
The first-ever trial of a former US president will include allegations that Trump falsified business records while compensating one of his lawyers, Michael Cohen, for burying stories of extramarital affairs that arose during the 2016 presidential race.
The charges — which carry the possibility of prison time — threaten Trump’s campaign schedule as he faces a general election rematch with President Joe Biden.
They also put a spotlight on Bragg, who has been the target of dozens of racist emails and death threats since the indictment was issued, as well as two packets of white powder.
“Because he is the first to take Trump to court, and because he has been successful so far, the level of hatred against Bragg is staggering,” said Norman Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who served as special counsel in the first lawsuit. impeachment trial against Trump. “The threat level is just off the charts.”
Citing Trump’s threatening and inflammatory statements, Judge Juan M. Merchan last month imposed a silence order that bars Trump from publicly commenting on witnesses, jurors or others involved in the case — but not on Bragg or the judge personally. Lawyers for Trump have sought to overturn the order and have used the issue as one of several arguments to delay the trial.
The 50-year-old Harlem-raised Bragg got his early political education during visits to the city’s homeless shelters, where his father worked. He said he was held at gunpoint six times during his childhood – three times by overly suspicious police officers – and had a knife held to his throat once.
After graduating from Harvard Law School, Bragg began his career as a criminal and civil rights attorney, later joining the federal prosecutor’s office in Manhattan. As a top lawyer in the New York attorney general’s office, he oversaw investigations into police killings and a lawsuit that shuttered Trump’s charitable foundation.
Although he said he had little interest in elected office, Bragg entered a crowded race for Manhattan district attorney in 2019, running on a platform of “justice and public safety.”
Compared to many of his opponents, Bragg took a more measured tone in laying out his plans for the investigation into Trump and his companies, which began under former prosecutor Cyrus Vance Jr.
Once in office, Bragg surprised many by pausing the criminal investigation into Trump, leading to the resignation of two top prosecutors who had pushed for charges.
When he revived the case last April, the data falsification charges were elevated to felonies under an unusual legal theory that Trump could be prosecuted in state court for violating federal campaign finance laws. Some legal experts say the strategy could backfire.
“It seems like a bit of a legal reach, and the question is why are they doing it?” said Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School. “It may be difficult to escape the conclusion that this attempt would not have been made if the suspect were not Donald Trump.”
From his first days as president, Bragg faced a barrage of criticism over a memo directing prosecutors not to seek prison time for certain low-level offenses.
He walked back parts of the directive amid fierce opposition from New York Police Department leaders, conservative media and some centrist Democrats, though he later said he regretted not pushing back more forcefully. For many on the right, the image of Bragg as an example of Democrats’ tolerance stuck.
“If you’re a prosecutor, you’re also a politician, and we kind of misunderstood that,” said Rebecca Roiphe, a professor at New York Law School who taught with Bragg and previously worked in the district attorney’s office in Manhattan worked. “The fact that he is not attuned to what he needs to do politically to get things done is both a strength and a weakness.”
Although most major crime rates in Manhattan are still lower than before Bragg took office, conservatives continue to accuse him of allowing rampant lawlessness. Republicans organized a field hearing in Congress in New York to investigate what they said were Bragg’s “pro-crime, anti-victim” policies.
Bragg was pilloried again on the right earlier this year when he refused to seek pretrial detention for several men accused of brawling with police officers in Times Square.
The decision drew criticism not only from conservatives but also from Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, and top NYPD officials. Defending himself, Bragg told reporters: “The only thing worse than failing to bring perpetrators to justice would be innocent people being caught up in the criminal justice system.”
He later announced that several men initially arrested played only minor roles or were not present at all.
In 2022, Bragg’s office pressured longtime Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg to plead guilty to evading taxes on company perks such as a luxury car and a rent-free apartment. Later that year, Trump’s company was put on trial and convicted of similar tax charges.
Afterwards, Bragg convened a new grand jury, which secured the indictment accusing Trump of falsely recording payments to Cohen as legal fees, while they were for orchestrating payoffs to porn actor Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, to to prevent them from going public. claims they had extramarital sexual encounters with Trump.
Trump denies the allegations and says no crime was committed. Now a jury is about to be selected that will make a historic decision on whether Trump broke the law — or whether Bragg went too far.