Meet Alvin Bragg: The Progressive New York Prosecutor Who Indicted Donald Trump

Alvin Bragg had already condemned the family business of the former president last January. For Donald Trump, this prosecutor is a “racist” and a “leftist”.

By Le Figaro with AFP

Posted on 03/31/2023 at 11:15update on 03/31/2023 at 11:31

He was the very first African-American magistrate to head the Manhattan prosecution: Alvin Bragg entered the history books by indicting Thursday March 30 Donald Trump, an unprecedented fact for a former American president. The former president is expected to appear on Tuesday, according to his lawyer.

This 49-year-old Democrat, elected in November 2021 – like all judges and magistrates in UNITED STATES – New York State Attorney for Manhattan Jurisdiction, officially indicted Donald Trump in a $130,000 payment case, just before his 2016 presidential victory, to an porn actress, Stormy Danielswith whom he allegedly had an affair.

progressive ideas

In office since January 1, 2022, Alvin Bragg, born in Harlem in northern Manhattan, immediately became known for his progressive positions in criminal and repressive policy. Attracting the wrath of Republican conservatives, including in New York, he has shown his desire to seek alternatives to prison for minor offenses and on the contrary to put pressure on white-collar and financial crime.

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Having grown up in the Harlem neighborhood in the 1980s and 1990s, he said in 2021 that he had been “deeply marked by the penal chain, including in attending three unconstitutional arrests, armed in the fist, by the NYPD“, the New York police, whose behavior towards black and Hispanic minorities has often been decried.

«Without trust, there can’t be to have of total public safety“, had launched to the press the lawyer out of Harvard and who worked for the Attorney General of the State of New York (equivalent to a local Minister of Justice, editor’s note) and for the federal prosecutor’s office which also sits at the palace. of justice in Manhattan.

The judicial system in the United States has a federal order of prosecutors and courts present in each state and attached to the Department of Justice in Washington, and a local order of prosecutors and courts for each federal state.

Jail as a last resort

Succeeding prosecutor Cyrus Vance in January 2022, Alvin Bragg announces from the start that he will no longer prosecute offenses deemed minor such as refusals to comply or resistance to arrests.

In a megalopolis of 8.5 million inhabitants, renowned for its enormous socio-economic inequalities and its sometimes violent history, Alvin Bragg also undertakes to request reduced sentences for certain thefts. Prison must also be considered as a last resort, according to this magistrate classified on the left. But Alvin Bragg must backtrack after criticism from New York City Mayor, former police captain Eric Adams. An African-American city councilor who wants to be tough and who was elected at the end of 2021 by campaigning on the fight against gun crime.

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On the Trump-Stormy Daniels file, Alvin Bragg had been accused in 2022 by the New York Times to want to temporize before indicting the former president. Two assistant prosecutors had thus resigned in February 2022 by denouncing the “doubts“That would have expressed at the time Alvin Bragg on the investigation against Donald Trump. On the contrary, “Bragg was skilful and pragmatic“, praised former prosecutor Bennett Gershman to AFP, welcoming a “investigation agressiveagainst the 45th US President (2017-2021).

A “racist” and a “leftist” for Trump

In addition, Prosecutor Bragg succeeded in January to convict the family business Trump Organization to a fine of $1.6 million for financial and tax fraud, a criminal first for the group, which is awaiting a major civil trial this year. The former chief financial officer of the group, loyal among the faithful, Allen Weisselberg, cooperated with the New York justice system and was sentenced to five months in prison and paid two million dollars.

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Donald Trump was not prosecuted in this case, but he regularly called Alvin Bragg “racist” and of “leftist“. On the Stormy Daniels file, the ex-president accused the prosecutor on Saturday of being “corrupt and highly politicized». Ces «intimidation attempts of our services and of threat to the state of right to New York will not be tolerated“warned the Manhattan prosecutor’s office.