SCOTT OLSON / Getty Images via AFP
Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan District Attorney, here on March 22, 2023.
UNITED STATES – Will he mark the history of the United States again? The first ever African-American magistrate elected to head the Manhattan prosecutor’s office, New York State Attorney Alvin Bragg could make his name even a little more famous if he becomes the first prosecutor to indict a former American president, in the Donald Trump case.
The 49-year-old man, member of the Democratic Party elected in November 2021 New York State Attorney for the jurisdiction of Manhattan has effectively taken over an explosive file: a criminal investigation against Donald Trump for a payment of 130,000 dollars ( around 120,000 euros) made to a former porn actress, Stormy Daniels. And this to keep secret the affair they would have had.
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New York justice is thus seeking to determine whether Donald Trump is guilty of false declarations, an offense or even a breach of the laws on electoral financing, a criminal offense, by having paid money to Stephanie Clifford, the real name of Stormy Daniels, to silence her just before the 2016 presidential election.
A progressive prosecutor
Donald Trump, who claims to be the victim of extortion in this affair, and who hopes to be re-elected to the White House in 2024, himself unleashed a media and political storm this Saturday, March 18 by writing in capital letters on his Truth Social network that he would be charged and stopped ” Tuesday, March 21.
Except that Prosecutor Bragg remained silent and nothing happened as the former head of state had announced. The grand jury meeting scheduled for Wednesday was finally canceled, and in any case, even indicted, Donald Trump would not have been immediately arrested. If this happened at any point in the proceedings, it would take several days before he appeared in Manhattan.
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It was in the north of this borough of New York, in Harlem, that Alvin Bragg was born. He grew up there in the 1980s and 1990s, when ” the epidemic of crack, which marked him deeply. “In addition to being the first black prosecutor, I think I am the first who has been targeted with a weapon, the first who has had a homicide victim on his doorstep, the first who has had a semi-automatic weapon pointed at him, the first who saw a loved one return from prison”, he claimed during his victory speech, recalls CNN.
Jail as a last resort
In office since January 1, 2022, replacing Cyrus Vance, Alvin Bragg immediately became known for his progressive positions in terms of criminal and repressive policy. In a megalopolis of 8.5 million inhabitants, renowned for its socio-economic inequalities and its violent history, the magistrate undertook to require softened sentences and alternatives to prison for certain offences. And considers that incarceration should be a last resort.
But these positions are not unanimous. Alvin Bragg, for example, had to apologize after the publication of a memo, just after his election, in which he wrote that he did not want to bring to justice those guilty of minor offenses related to marijuana, non-payment of transport tickets , or prostitution. A text that made the police unions and the mayor of New York, Eric Adams, himself a former police captain, jump. Because the African-American city councilor wants to be tough and he was elected at the end of 2021 by campaigning on the fight against crime by firearm.
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Prior to being a prosecutor, Alvin Bragg worked for the New York State Attorney General (equivalent to a local Attorney General, editor’s note) as well as for the Federal Prosecutor’s Office. Among his feats of arms, he represented the family of Eric Garner, an African-American who died during his arrest by the police in 2014, in his civil lawsuit against the city of New York.
Fighting white collar crime
Also, Alvin Bragg is known for his drive to crack down on white collar crime and financial crime. Moreover, the first legal meeting between Donald Trump and Alvin Bragg is long before the Stormy Daniels case: the prosecutor even boasts of having sued the Trump administration at least 100 times.
He notably worked on a file concerning the Donald J. Trump Foundation, which led to its dissolution in 2018. Last January, he also succeeded in having the Trump Organization fined $ 1.6 million for financial and tax fraud, a criminal first for the group. Donald Trump was not personally prosecuted in this case, but he regularly called Alvin Bragg “ racist” and of “ leftist ».
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On the Stormy Daniels file, the ex-president accused the prosecutor on Saturday of being “ corrupt, highly politicized,” and being at the heels of George Soros, the American pro-democracy billionaire hated by conservatives. Accusations taken up in chorus by the supporters of the ex-president. But Alvin Bragg warned: these “ attempts to intimidate our services and threaten the rule of law in New York will not be tolerated”.
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