Alvin Bragg is in the spotlight as someone who could lead Previous President before an American court.

He is one of five elected prosecutors in New York and has been the head of the Manhattan prosecutor’s office for a year now.

In essence, he “inherited” Trump’s record of Stormy Daniels – a pornographic actress allegedly bought by the former president to remain silent during the campaign so as not to reveal their alleged love affairs that would cut short his path to the White House – from his predecessor. , Cyrus Vance Jr.

From Harlem to Trump

The forty-nine-year-old, who grew up in Harlem in the 80s, knows violence and threats. As a child, he felt a gun pointed at him six times. In three of them, the gun belonged to a police officer. As he himself said, this experience shaped his ideas about crime.

Now he is being haunted not only by Trump’s threats of “death and destruction” if impeached, but by strangers with threatening phone calls, suspicious powder letters and bomb warning emails.

A graduate of Harvard Law School, the 49-year-old served at the state and federal levels before becoming Manhattan’s first black district attorney.

Upon taking office in January 2022, he pledged to reform criminal justice at a time when New Yorkers were particularly concerned about rising crime.

Arguably the most famous U.S. Attorney’s Office, due in part to Law & Order, Bragg’s $146 million budget is backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in Wall Street forfeitures, sums attributed to public and criminal justice programs.

Trump and some Republicans call the Bragg investigation politically motivated and “unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial power.” However, as The Economist notes, “the 49-year-old man’s background shows that he is guided by law and facts.”

Weeks after taking office, he was criticized by many Democrats for “freezing” his predecessor’s investigation into Trump’s finances. But Bragg focused on cases that were easier to prove, such as last year’s successful prosecution of the Trump Organization for tax evasion.

“So far it hasn’t made anyone on any political spectrum happy. So obviously he doesn’t play politics. That makes him a cautious prosecutor,” said Rebecca Royfe, a former Manhattan district attorney.

Difficult cases

Bragg represented the family of Eric Garner, an African American who died of asphyxiation after being pulled over by a police officer. He was the man who essentially ignited the Black Lives Matter movement, which was to take on nationwide proportions in later years due to other victims of police brutality.

He also worked on a New York City lawsuit against once-famous film producer Harvey Weinstein and the Weinstein Corporation in 2018.

As prosecutor, he announced the indictment of Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser and figure on the American alt-right, accused of defrauding donors in a fundraising campaign that promised to build a wall along the southern border.

In February 2022, Bragg’s Manhattan District Attorney’s Office confiscated dozens of antiquities illegally acquired by collector and billionaire hedge fund founder Michael Steinhardt and returned them to Greece.

“Condescension to Crime”

A few days after being sworn in, Bragg sent a memo to prosecutors directing them not to prosecute certain offenses, such as misdemeanors related to marijuana, prostitution, and ticket evasion, and not to require jail time for certain criminal cases, such as like some robberies. and attacks. , explaining that he wants alternative solutions for those who do not have a criminal record.

His attitude provoked a reaction among state Republicans as well as in the ranks of the police, with Inspector Paul DiGiacomo calling him a “pro-crime politician.”

He himself replied to those who described him as “indulgent towards crimes” that their accusations were “incorrect.”

“Now, after a year of work in the prosecutor’s office, criminal cases for possession of weapons have increased by 20%. Shootings and killings have subsided. Criminal prosecutions for hate crimes have increased. We are responsible for our duty. We’re doing it carefully, focusing on those doing the most damage to Manhattan,” he said via CBS.

Source: The Economist/CBS.