Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said Tuesday that failing to indict former President Donald Trump would “normalize” crime, despite having reduced more than half of felony charges to misdemeanors since taking office.
Trump arrived at the Manhattan Criminal Court where he pleaded “not guilty” to 34 counts of criminal charges Tuesday. Bragg oversaw the criminal investigations into Trump that eventually led to a Manhattan grand jury indicting him over accusations that he allegedly paid $130,000 in hush money to former porn actress Stormy Daniels to stay silent about their alleged affair.
“We cannot and will not normalize serious criminal conduct. The defendant repeatedly made false statements on New York business records,” Bragg said at a Tuesday press conference.
Since taking office in January 2022, Bragg has reduced 52% of felony crimes to misdemeanors and requested bail in 49% of felony cases. In an initial memo, Bragg announced robberies would be classified as misdemeanor petty larceny, unless a person was physically harmed in the incident. Bragg scrapped the policy in February 2022, and announced in an updated memo that commercial robberies committed with a gun, at knifepoint or with another weapon “will be charged as a felony.”
His campaign reportedly received $1 million from Democratic megadonor George Soros through the Color of Change PAC, a left-wing political organization aiming to elect district attorneys who will be lenient on crime, according to the Daily Mail. (RELATED: ‘Smash Some Windows, Rob A Few Shops’: Sen. Graham Trolls Manhattan DA Over Trump Indictment)
Trump accused Bragg of politically targeting him and conducting a “witch hunt” against him through the indictment. The former president accused Bragg of being “hand-picked” by Soros and of focusing on persecuting him rather than tackling rising crime in New York City.
“Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, who was hand-picked and funded by George Soros, is a disgrace. Rather than stopping the unprecedented crime wave taking over New York City, he’s doing Joe Biden’s dirty work, ignoring the murders and burglaries and assaults he should be focused on. This is how Bragg spends his time!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on the day of his indictment.