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In his first three months as the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg had an unusual number of bad days. Feb. 23 was among the worst.<\/p>\n
That day, the two prosecutors leading his office\u2019s inquiry into Donald J. Trump resigned<\/a> over a disagreement about whether to seek criminal charges against the former president. After one of the prosecutors\u2019 resignation letters<\/a> leaked, an uproar ensued. Soon, Mr. Bragg, a Democrat, was being attacked by many in his own party and pilloried by late night comedians.<\/p>\n For Mr. Bragg, it was just the latest crisis: He had already been the subject of intense criticism from the other side of the political spectrum, after a memo he released in his first days on the job<\/a> announced, in complex legalese, that the office would cease to seek jail and prison time for all but the most serious crimes.<\/p>\n Between the backlash to the memo<\/a> and the fallout from the Trump investigation, Mr. Bragg managed, in less than 12 weeks, an unlikely feat: He united the New York Post\u2019s editorial board<\/a> and the viewers of MSNBC<\/a> in a posture of mutual disdain. Rarely has a politician become a pi\u00f1ata so quickly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The two instances have defined the early days of Mr. Bragg\u2019s chaotic tenure, during which political clumsiness has hamstrung his attempts to overhaul the office. In each, Mr. Bragg appeared to make a decision on principle: That the office should not bring cases unjustly, or prosecute them when he does not believe the facts merit it.<\/p>\n But in each case, the principle behind the decision was overshadowed by the severity of the reaction, undermining the new district attorney\u2019s long-held ambitions to change the criminal justice system in Manhattan.<\/p>\n In an interview on the day the Trump prosecutors resigned, Mr. Bragg expressed a desire to put his head down and do the work of the office. He hopes that driving down gun violence and the population at Rikers while pushing ahead on the Trump investigation \u2014 which he insisted this week was continuing<\/a> \u2014 will \u201cneutralize\u201d the noise around him. Elected prosecutors, Mr. Bragg said, should not act as politicians in the traditional sense of the word.<\/p>\n \u201cThe second we start thinking we\u2019re politicians, we\u2019ve taken a real wrong turn,\u201d Mr. Bragg said.<\/p>\n But in interviews with more than 20 people closely tracking the district attorney, critics and supporters alike suggested that Mr. Bragg\u2019s failure to engage with the political realities of his office jeopardized his chances of accomplishing his goals.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that as a first-time elected official, there\u2019s been a rocky adjustment to go from campaigning to actually doing the job,\u201d said Daniel S. Goldman, who was a federal prosecutor in the same office as Mr. Bragg and later led the first impeachment inquiry into Mr. Trump.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThat transition has been bumpy for Alvin and I think that when you get off to a bad start, it\u2019s very difficult to get back on the right track,\u201d Mr. Goldman said. \u201cAnd I think what he\u2019s hoping is that he\u2019ll focus on doing the work and ultimately people will see that the policies he\u2019s implemented will be productive.\u201d<\/p>\n When Mr. Bragg began his campaign for district attorney in June 2019, crime in New York City was hovering near a historic low<\/a>, the pandemic was nine months away from pummeling the city and Mr. Trump had yet to be impeached even once.<\/p>\n But by the time he took office, gun violence had risen sharply and the city was enduring yet another surge of Covid cases.<\/p>\n Mr. Bragg had won by emphasizing the need for a balance between public safety and making the justice system more fair. As he began his tenure, though, many New Yorkers were far more focused on the first plank of his platform.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s trying to have a conversation about undoing some really unjust policies in the height of crime spikes and a global pandemic and feelings of unease,\u201d said Christina Greer, a political science professor at Fordham.<\/p>\n That is a difficult conversation to have, she said, particularly with some white voters who might be more comfortable with a progressive approach to criminal justice in theory than in practice.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Much of the campaign for district attorney was conducted over Zoom, and the other candidates were, for the most part, as new to politics as Mr. Bragg himself.<\/p>\n A former law professor and Sunday school teacher, Mr. Bragg embodied both roles when speaking in those forums: He listened thoughtfully, and, when it was his turn, he spoke in paragraphs, often interrupting or editing himself in the middle of a sentence.<\/p>\n He has remained calm and deliberative in his days in office, even as the pressure on him has ramped up. His response to questions about the Trump investigation in February was characteristic: \u201cThere\u2019s a part of me, the non-lawyer part, that wants to have a conversation,\u201d he said. \u201cBut the part that\u2019s been a career prosecutor tells me I can\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Bragg\u2019s prosecutorial philosophy is roughly similar to that of others who were elected during the Trump presidency and vowed to fight racism and injustice in the criminal legal system.<\/p>\n But in New York this year, prominent elected officials have taken a more moderate stance on criminal justice policy. Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams both pushed, successfully<\/a>, for changes to the 2019 overhaul of the state\u2019s bail law. Mr. Adams has reintroduced a troubled anti-gun unit to the streets of New York.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThe whole criminal justice reform movement is very much on the defensive,\u201d said Janos Marton, a former candidate for Manhattan district attorney who endorsed Mr. Bragg after dropping out of the race.<\/p>\n In testimony to the City Council last month, Mr. Bragg outlined his priorities: He said his office would identify and prosecute the people driving gun violence in Manhattan, form a dedicated hate crimes unit to deal with a sharp rise in targeted attacks, and strengthen a unit that reviews the office\u2019s convictions to guard against wrongful imprisonment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Perhaps the fullest realization of Mr. Bragg\u2019s campaign promises has come with the announcement of a new division dedicated to diverting defendants away from jail or prison and toward supportive services. Mr. Bragg has said that he believes in the value of such work to thwart recidivism and put troubled individuals on a better path.<\/p>\n But the rise in shootings and<\/a> Mr. Bragg\u2019s stumbles may have hurt his chances of realizing his agenda. In early February he clarified his first-week memo, which implemented the policies he had announced on the campaign trail, saying his prosecutors were not bound by his guidance and were free to determine the course of their cases.<\/p>\n \u201cThe most disappointing thing was how quickly he seemed to cave to this prevailing, fear-mongering narrative,\u201d said Amanda Jack, a member of 5 Boro Defenders, a coalition of public defenders.<\/p>\n She said that during the campaign, Mr. Bragg had been \u201cable to please all sides, which we were always a little bit suspicious of but hopeful. But now I\u2019m suspicious of it and feeling a little cynical.\u201d<\/p>\n The Manhattan district attorney\u2019s office is the country\u2019s highest-profile local prosecutor\u2019s office \u2014 a distinction sharpened by the high-stakes investigation into Mr. Trump.<\/p>\n For three years, the office had investigated whether the 45th president had committed a crime, an inquiry that in its later stages focused on whether Mr. Trump misrepresented the value of his assets.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mark F. Pomerantz, a respected veteran prosecutor who came out of retirement to work on the investigation, felt confident that the investigators could prove it<\/a>.<\/p>\n Before leaving office in December, Mr. Bragg\u2019s predecessor, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., directed Mr. Pomerantz and Carey Dunne, another prosecutor running the investigation, to proceed with a grand jury presentation against Mr. Trump.<\/p>\n Mr. Bragg was less sure that the office had the necessary evidence. In a series of meetings, Mr. Pomerantz and Mr. Dunne attempted to convince Mr. Bragg to change his mind. He did not.<\/p>\n\u2018A really hard conversation to have\u2019<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
An investigation with an uncertain future<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n