Portrait

Alvin Bragg, the progressive prosecutor who dared to indict Donald Trump

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on February 7, 2023 in New York City. AP - Seth Wenig

Text by: RFI Follow

2 min

The Manhattan prosecutor has officially indicted the former tenant of the White House, who dreams of winning it back in 2024, for a case of payment and refund, just before the presidential election of November 2016, of $ 130,000 to actress and director of X films Stormy Daniels.

Advertising

Read more

He was the first African-American magistrate to head the Manhattan prosecutor's office. Alvin Bragg, the Harlem child with a salt beard and well-trimmed pepper, became this Friday, March 31, the worst nightmare of Donald Trump, who regularly calls him a "racist" and "leftist". And the 49-year-old Democrat made U.S. history by indicting an ex-president for the first time.

This is far from the first time he has incurred the wrath of Republicans. As soon as he took office in January 2022 following Cyrus Vance Jr., the African-American prosecutor classified as progressive made white-collar crime his hobbyhorse. Best example: he succeeded in fining the family business Trump Organization $1.6 million for financial and tax fraud.

"Fairness and security"

Alvin Bragg had said in 2021 to have been in his youth "deeply marked by the penal chain, including witnessing three unconstitutional arrests, gun in hand, by the NYPD", the NYPD, whose behavior towards black and Hispanic minorities has often been decried. "Without trust, there can be no total public safety," the Harvard lawyer, who worked for the New York State Attorney General and the federal prosecutor's office, which also sits at the Manhattan courthouse, told reporters. He also supervises a unit responsible for working on police killings, says the website of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. He is also very involved in the fight against gun crime.

Marked by the murder of African-American George Floyd by a white police officer, Alvin Bragg promises "fairness and safety" in New York and pledges to no longer prosecute offenses deemed minor such as refusal to comply or pay for public transportation or resistance to stops. Because according to this Harvard lawyer who has experienced police violence against blacks in his own flesh, prison should only be the last resort.

On the Trump-Stormy Daniels file, Alvin Bragg was accused in 2022 by the New York Times of wanting to delay before indicting the former president. Two deputy prosecutors had resigned in February 2022 denouncing the "doubts" he would have expressed at the time on the investigation against Donald Trump.

(

With AFP)

Newsletter Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

Read on on the same topics:

  • United States
  • Justice
  • Donald Trump
  • Portrait