FOR PROSECUTOR BRAGG, TRUMP INDICTMENT IS CAMPAIGN PROMISE KEPT. Alvin Bragg, the local district attorney in Manhattan who has led the effort to indict former President Donald Trump, is an elected official. He ran for his current office in 2021. In that campaign, he won a Democratic primary crowded with fellow Democrats who promised that, if elected, they would go after Trump. Now, having been elected, Bragg is going after Trump.
Getting Trump has been a common feature in New York elections for law enforcement positions. The 2018 campaign for state attorney general was a virtual bidding war in which each candidate promised to pursue Trump more zealously than the other candidates. The winner, Attorney General Letitia James, has been unable to come up with criminal charges against Trump personally, but she did, along with Bragg, prosecute the Trump Organization on questionable grounds — or, if not questionable, at least grounds that led observers to wonder whether the case would have been pursued with such fervor against an organization not named Trump. Top Trump official Allen Weisselberg pleaded guilty to 15 felony charges.
Now Bragg has won the indict-Trump sweepstakes. And for him, indicting Trump on charges that seem truly questionable is more than just indicting Trump. It is keeping a campaign promise. No, Bragg did not specifically pledge, “If elected, I will indict Donald J. Trump.” But he promised to pursue Trump and hold him “accountable,” which is liberal code for going after Trump in any way possible.
In June 2021, Bragg debated his top rival in the district attorney’s race, Tali Farhadian Weinstein. Even though there are many, many issues confronting the Manhattan district attorney, issues including rampant violent crime and protecting citizens from rampant violent crime, much of the debate was about Trump. The headline of the New York Times story reporting the debate was “Two Leading Manhattan D.A. Candidates Face the Trump Question.”
By Byron York
