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Alvin Bragg, Manhattan's district attorney, draws friends close and critics closer
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks during a press conference following the arraignment of former U.S. President Donald Trump in New York City on April 4, 2023.
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Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks during a press conference following the arraignment of former U.S. President Donald Trump in New York City on April 4, 2023.
Jennah Moon/The Washington Post/Getty Images
Observers, friends and former colleagues view Alvin Bragg Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, as a smart, deliberate lawyer and a selfless public servant. And people who claim him as their friend say he’s a thoughtful one.
Those who spoke to NPR, who know Bragg well or watch him closely, say he is neither moved nor driven by politics. Bragg declined to speak for this story.
Attorney Anurima Bhargava has been friends with Bragg since they were undergrads at Harvard University, where Bragg also earned his law degree.
“One of the things that is so intensely remarkable,” she says, “is that he’s had friends, and colleagues, and people he grew up with, and he’s stayed close to all of us.”
Bhargava leads Anthem of Us, a consulting firm. She says Bragg finds ways to stay connected.
“This year, I had a movie premiere,” she says. “He was working, but he showed up in the back, and made sure I knew that he was in the room. And that’s the kind of stuff that, like, even if it’s for 10 minutes, it means something.”
Attorney Anurima Bhargava has been a friend of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg since they attended Harvard University in the 1990’s. She says his presence had always made her feel and supported.
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Attorney Anurima Bhargava has been a friend of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg since they attended Harvard University in the 1990’s. She says his presence had always made her feel and supported.
José A. Alvarado Jr. for NPR
Bragg was featured in Harvard’s student newspaper, The Crimson, in a 1995 article. He was described as “empathetic” and gregarious.”
“Alvin is always the person to go and start a conversation,” Bhargava says, and adds, he was at the center of difficult campus conversations, and someone who defied stereotypes as an actively listener, even with people he just met. Bhargava says whether at a committee meeting or a party, Bragg was a warm, welcoming presence.
“If Alvin was in the room, like, I always felt really safe and supported,” Bhargava says. “I felt like there was someone in the room who would always have my back.”
Alvin Bragg is now at the center of the first-ever criminal trial of a former American president.
The Manhattan district attorney now oversees a team of six prosecutors trying the case against Donald Trump. Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree.
Last year, the former president was arraigned and pleaded not guilty to all charges. Bragg then held a news conference.
“Under New York State law, it is a felony to falsify business records with the intent to conceal another crime,” Bragg said. “That is exactly what this case is about.”
Jury selection is expected to be complete by the end of the week. Opening arguments could happen as early as Monday. Donald Trump faces a penalty of up to four years in prison.
The former president has claimed Bragg’s prosecution to be politically motivated. Trump’s defense attorneys have filed and failed to have the case delayed or dismissed. The presiding judge, Juan Merchan, has denied all those motions.
Some view the case as a distraction, compared to three other criminal cases pending against Trump, where prosecutors allege his actions present far more serious threats to democracy.
Terri Gerstein worked with Alvin Bragg in the New York Attorney General’s office. He is smart and a careful lawyer, she says. Gerstein is now a director at the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University.
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Terri Gerstein recalls Alvin Bragg as thoughtful and detail-oriented. “He’s one of the smartest people that I’ve known,” she says. “I know how careful he is as a lawyer.”
Bragg supervised Gerstein in the New York Attorney General’s office, where she was labor bureau chief.
“He would carefully read all of the pleadings or briefs or memos that we were writing. And look up the cases himself and, like, really, really delve into them,” she says.
Gerstein now is a director at the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at NYU. She remembers working on a couple of wage theft cases where home care aides went unpaid, caring for older patients and people with disabilities.
“That case really touched a nerve with him,” she says. “That people would be doing this kind of work, and that someone would take advantage of them in that way.”
The employers pleaded guilty in both cases.
Before he was elected Manhattan district attorney, Bragg was steeped in prosecuting white collar crime and public corruption cases working for both the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) and the New York Attorney General.
He grew up as a son of Harlem
Alvin Bragg Jr. attended Trinity, a private K-12 college prep school. He was nurtured in a storied section of Harlem called Strivers’ Row. His mother, Sadie, taught high school math and later was vice president at Borough of Manhattan Community College. His father, Alvin Sr., headed the local Urban League for several years. He retired as the city’s director of homeless shelters. Bragg’s parents wanted their only child to be open and experience all kinds of people.
Bragg worshiped at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem as a child, and still does now with his wife and children. He teaches Sunday school there. In 2021, the late pastor Calvin Butts III introduced candidate Bragg during a Sunday service as “a son of Harlem.” Rev. Butts gave Bragg a few moments to make his pitch to potential voters.
“I had a gun pointed at me six times, three by the NYPD during lawless stops, and three by people who were not police officers,” Bragg told the congregation.
“After the first gunpoint stop by the NYPD, I saw our pastor, Reverend Butts, and he guided me through how to file a civilian complaint. That was the beginning of my advocacy.” He was a high school student at the time.
Bragg campaigned and won on his lived experience, and became the first black person elected Manhattan district attorney.
Jelani Cobb has covered Bragg as a staff writer for The New Yorker.
Jelani Cobb, a staff writer for The New Yorker, observes progressive district attorneys like Bragg must balance their ability to make reform in the system with the public’s perception of its safety.
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Jelani Cobb, a staff writer for The New Yorker, observes progressive district attorneys like Bragg must balance their ability to make reform in the system with the public’s perception of its safety.
David Buchan/Penske Mediaa/Getty Images
“Alvin Bragg is somebody who grew up in Harlem at the time that ‘stop and frisk’ was just a part of life,” Cobb says. “The Central Park Five are now kind of a stand-in for that whole era of policing.”
“And so, it means a lot,” says Cobb, who is also dean at Columbia University’s Journalism School. “That there’s somebody who has experienced both sides of the ledger, serving as a prosecutor, but also witnessing some of the areas in which the system has gone wrong.”
Bragg seeks to strike a balance between public safety and reform
D.A. Bragg declared prosecuting violent crime his top priority. He has also advocated for alternatives to jail when appropriate, and dropped prosecutions for low-level offenses.
Tina Luongo says Bragg has put people in high places of his administration who “think outside the box” in terms of reform. Tina Luongo heads criminal defense practice for the Legal Aid Society, the city’s primary source for public defenders. They were familiar with Bragg for many years and aware of his reform efforts when he worked in the New York Attorney General’s office.
Bragg is different from his predecessors, Luongo says.
Legal Aid Chief Attorney Tina Luongo says Alvin Bragg is an attentive listener. “He may or may not agree with my position, but he hears me out,” she says. She is shown speaking at a rally to protest the 17th death on Rikers Island at City Hall in New York City in 2022.
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Legal Aid Chief Attorney Tina Luongo says Alvin Bragg is an attentive listener. “He may or may not agree with my position, but he hears me out,” she says. She is shown speaking at a rally to protest the 17th death on Rikers Island at City Hall in New York City in 2022.
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“I do believe that if I pick up a phone and I call Alvin and I complain about something, he’s listening,” Loungo says. “And he may or may not agree with my position, but he hears me out.”
Some of Bragg’s reforms, intended to reduce recidivism, draw criticism from conservative media who accuse Bragg of being “soft on crime.”
Jelani Cobb says Bragg works in a dynamic space where challenging the status quo on law and order issues can be tricky.
“For progressive prosecutors in general, I would say him included, their ability to make reform in the system is always counterbalanced by the public’s perception of its safety,” says Cobb.
A call for new ideas invites critics
Former prosecutor Karen Friedman Agnifilo was second in command to Cy Vance, the last Manhattan district attorney. “It really is a time in our history for a person of color to be the district attorney,” she says. Friedman says she decided not to run for the office after Vance declined a fourth bid.
She says “fresh, new ideas” are needed to solve recidivism, because “the old ways” or patterns of prosecution and incarceration are not working.
“I’ve never worked with him, but he’s doing a really good job,” she says.
Karen Friedman Agnifilo was former Chief Assistant District Attorney for Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance. Every new district attorney has missteps in the beginning, she says.
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Karen Friedman Agnifilo was former Chief Assistant District Attorney for Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance. Every new district attorney has missteps in the beginning, she says.
José A. Alvarado Jr. for NPR
Bragg stumbled early on with the release of the Day One Memo, a document that outlined policy shifts for bail and sentencing, among other changes. It was sent office-wide via email, without any discussion.
“It didn’t go well at all,” says Catherine Christian, a veteran Assistant District Attorney who worked for three decades in the office before becoming a law partner in private practice.
Catherine Christian, a former assistant district attorney in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office and currently in private practice, believes Alvin Bragg is someone who learns from his mistakes.
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Catherine Christian, a former assistant district attorney in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office and currently in private practice, believes Alvin Bragg is someone who learns from his mistakes.
José A. Alvarado Jr. for NPR
Christian, who left seven months into Bragg’s term, says he recovered after a long period of chaos and found his footing after about a year. “I think he’s someone who’s willing to learn, and learns from mistakes. And listens,” she says.
Only a few weeks in office, Bragg had another set of challenges.
Bragg reportedly questioned the lead prosecutors, Mark Pomerantz and Carey Dunne, in several meetings. He’d stopped their team from presenting evidence against Donald Trump to a grand jury in a criminal probe into Trump’s involvement in fraud for overvaluing his assets. (New York Attorney General Letitia James later successfully pursued a civil lawsuit against the Trump Organization, largely along the same lines of evidence pursued by Mark Pomerantz, and it resulted in a $454 million penalty against Trump.)
Bragg had doubts about moving forward, and both Pomerantz and Dunne resigned in protest a month later. In March 2023, Bragg empaneled a new grand jury that voted to indict Trump.
“I know that there were a few missteps in the beginning, and growing pains,” Karen Friedman Agnifilo says. “But I think he’s maturing really nicely.”
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office is staffed by more than 1,500 people. The work ranges from prosecuting white collar crime to human trafficking to street crime to addressing needs of survivors, exonerating wrongful convictions police misconduct, and returning of stolen antiquities.
In January 2023, a New York state court ordered the Trump Organization to pay fines totaling 1.6 million in a tax fraud case. D.A. Bragg’s office successfully won that prosecution.
Bragg may be seen as maturing in his job, but he continues to be tested by cases and critics. Earlier this year, several migrants allegedly attacked police officers in Times Square. At the hearing, prosecutors did not request bail, due to a lack of evidence at the time. The suspected attackers were set free, and Bragg took heat for his handling of the case from politicians and others.
“Why are these four individuals released on their own recognizance?” Patrick Hendry asked during a news conference. Hendry is president of the Police Benevolent Association (PBA), the city’s largest police union. “Why aren’t they in jail right now?”
Prosecutors did a thorough investigation. Bragg defended his office.
“We do not tolerate people assaulting police officers,” Bragg told the press. “But in a court of law, our profound obligation is to make sure we have the right people charged with the right crimes.”
Prosecutors filed charges after many days and several suspects were held for trial.
“You’re not allowed to talk about details and facts,” says Karen Friedman Agnifilo. Bragg, like all district attorneys, is confronted by cases where he can’t share information with the public, or respond to critics the way politicians do.
“You’re an officer of the court and the highest law enforcement official, first and foremost,” Agnifilo Friedman says, “and you’re a politician second.”
The unprecedented trial of Donald Trump is a case that Alvin Bragg Jr. doubted, delayed and later revived. Now underway, it will put the Manhattan district attorney to the test.
A federal judge ruled Friday that President Donald Trump’s administration cannot block federal money for child care subsidies and other programs aimed at supporting needy children and their families from flowing to five Democratic-led states for now.
The states of California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York argued that a policy announced Tuesday to freeze funds for three grant programs is having an immediate impact on them and creating “operational chaos.” In court filings and a hearing earlier Friday, the states contended that the government did not have a legal reason for holding back the money from those states.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said it was pausing the funding because it had “reason to believe” the states were granting benefits to people in the country illegally, though it did not provide evidence or explain why it was targeting those states and not others.
The programs are the Child Care and Development Fund, which subsidizes child care for children from low-income families; the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which provides cash assistance and job training; and the Social Services Block Grant, a smaller fund that provides money for a variety of programs.
The five states say they receive a total of more than $10 billion a year from the programs.
U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, who was nominated to the bench by former President Joe Biden, did not rule on the legality of the funding freeze, but he said the five states had met a legal threshold “to protect the status quo” for at least 14 days while arguments are made in court.
The government had requested reams of data from the five states, including the names and Social Security numbers of everyone who received benefits from some of the programs since 2022.
The states argue that the effort is unconstitutional and is intended to go after Trump’s political adversaries rather than to stamp out fraud in government programs — something the states say they already do.
Jessica Ranucci, a lawyer in the New York Attorney General’s office, said in the Friday hearing, which was conducted by telephone, that at least four of the states had already had money delayed after requesting it. She said that if the states can’t get child care funds, there will be immediate uncertainty for providers and families who rely on the programs.
A lawyer for the federal government, Kamika Shaw, said it was her understanding that the money had not stopped flowing to states.
The Interior Department’s new “America the Beautiful” annual pass for U.S. national parks.
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Department of Interior
The National Park Service has updated its policy to discourage visitors from defacing a picture of President Trump on this year’s pass.
The use of an image of Trump on the 2026 pass — rather than the usual picture of nature — has sparked a backlash, sticker protests, and a lawsuit from a conservation group.
The $80 annual America the Beautiful pass gives visitors access to more than 2,000 federal recreation sites. Since 2004, the pass has typically showcased sweeping landscapes or iconic wildlife, selected through a public photo contest. Past winners have featured places like Arches National Park in Utah and images of bison roaming the plains.
Instead, of a picture of nature, this year’s design shows side-by-side portraits of Presidents George Washington and Trump. The new design has drawn criticism from parkgoers and ignited a wave of “do-it-yourself” resistance.
Photos circulating online show that many national park cardholders have covered the image of Trump’s face with stickers of wildlife, landscapes, and yellow smiley faces, while some have completely blocked out the whole card. The backlash has also inspired a growing sticker campaign.
Jenny McCarty, a longtime park volunteer and graphic designer, began selling custom stickers meant to fit directly over Trump’s face — with 100% of proceeds going to conservation nonprofits. “We made our first donation of $16,000 in December,” McCarty said. “The power of community is incredible.”
McCarty says the sticker movement is less about politics and more about preserving the neutrality of public lands. “The Interior’s new guidance only shows they continue to disregard how strongly people feel about keeping politics out of national parks,” she said.
The National Park Service card policy was updated this week to say that passes may no longer be valid if they’ve been “defaced or altered.” The change, which was revealed in an internal email to National Park Service staff obtained by SFGATE, comes just as the sticker movement has gained traction across social media.
In a statement to NPR, the Interior Department said there was no new policy. Interagency passes have always been void if altered, as stated on the card itself. The agency said the recent update was meant to clarify that rule and help staff deal with confusion from visitors.
The Park Service has long said passes can be voided if the signature strip is altered, but the updated guidance now explicitly includes stickers or markings on the front of the card.
It will be left to the discretion of park service officials to determine whether a pass has been “defaced” or not. The update means park officials now have the leeway to reject a pass if a sticker leaves behind residue, even if the image underneath is intact.
In December, conservation group the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit in Washington, D.C., opposing the new pass design.
The group argues that the image violates a federal requirement that the annual America the Beautiful pass display a winning photograph from a national parks photo contest. The 2026 winning image was a picture of Glacier National Park.
“This is part of a larger pattern of Trump branding government materials with his name and image,” Kierán Suckling, the executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, told NPR. “But this kind of cartoonish authoritarianism won’t fly in the United States.”
The lawsuit asks a federal court to pull the current pass design and replace it with the original contest winner — the Glacier National Park image. It also seeks to block the government from featuring a president’s face on future passes.
The America the Beautiful National Parks Annual Pass for 2025, showing one of the natural images which used to adorn the pass. Its picture, of a Roseate Spoonbill taken at Everglades National Park, was taken by Michael Zheng.
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Not everyone sees a problem with the new design. Vince Vanata, the GOP chairman of Park County, Wyoming, told the Cowboy State Daily that Trump detractors should “suck it up” and accept the park passes, saying they are a fitting tribute to America’s 250th birthday this July 4.
“The 250th anniversary of our country only comes once. This pass is showing the first president of the United States and the current president of the United States,” Vanata said.
But for many longtime visitors, the backlash goes beyond design.
Erin Quinn Gery, who buys an annual pass each year, compared the image to “a mug shot slapped onto natural beauty.”
She also likened the decision to self-glorification: “It’s akin to throwing yourself a parade or putting yourself on currency,” she said. “Let someone else tell you you’re great — or worth celebrating and commemorating.”
When asked if she plans to remove her protest sticker, Gery replied: “I’ll take the sticker off my pass after Trump takes his name off the Kennedy Center.”
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Federal immigration officers shot and wounded two people in a vehicle outside a hospital in Portland, Oregon, on Thursday, a day after an officer shot and killed a driver in Minnesota, authorities said.
The Department of Homeland Security described the vehicle’s passenger as “a Venezuelan illegal alien affiliated with the transnational Tren de Aragua prostitution ring” who had been involved in a recent shooting in Portland. When agents identified themselves to the vehicle occupants Thursday afternoon, the driver tried to run them over, the department said in a written statement.
“Fearing for his life and safety, an agent fired a defensive shot,” the statement said. “The driver drove off with the passenger, fleeing the scene.”
There was no immediate independent corroboration of those events or of any gang affiliation of the vehicle’s occupants. During prior shootings involving agents involved in President Donald Trump’s surge of immigration enforcement in U.S. cities, including Wednesday’s shooting by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis, video evidence cast doubt on the administration’s initial descriptions of what prompted the shootings.
READ MORE: What we know so far about the ICE shooting in Minneapolis
According to the the Portland Police bureau, officers initially responded to a report of a shooting near a hospital at about 2:18 p.m.
A few minutes later, police received information that a man who had been shot was asking for help in a residential area a couple of miles away. Officers then responded there and found the two people with apparent gunshot wounds. Officers determined they were injured in the shooting with federal agents, police said.
Their conditions were not immediately known. Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney said during a Portland city council meeting that Thursday’s shooting took place in the eastern part of the city and that two Portlanders were wounded.
“As far as we know both of these individuals are still alive and we are hoping for more positive updates throughout the afternoon,” she said.
The shooting escalates tensions in an city that has long had a contentious relationship with President Donald Trump, including Trump’s recent, failed effort to deploy National Guard troops in the city.
Portland police secured both the scene of the shooting and the area where the wounded people were found pending investigation.
“We are still in the early stages of this incident,” said Chief Bob Day. “We understand the heightened emotion and tension many are feeling in the wake of the shooting in Minneapolis, but I am asking the community to remain calm as we work to learn more.”
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson and the city council called on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to end all operations in Oregon’s largest city until a full investigation is completed.
“We stand united as elected officials in saying that we cannot sit by while constitutional protections erode and bloodshed mounts,” a joint statement said. “Portland is not a ‘training ground’ for militarized agents, and the ‘full force’ threatened by the administration has deadly consequences.”
The city officials said “federal militarization undermines effective, community‑based public safety, and it runs counter to the values that define our region. We’ll use every legal and legislative tool available to protect our residents’ civil and human rights.”
They urged residents to show up with “calm and purpose during this difficult time.”
“We respond with clarity, unity, and a commitment to justice,” the statement said. “We must stand together to protect Portland.”
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, urged any protesters to remain peaceful.
“Trump wants to generate riots,” he said in a post on the X social media platform. “Don’t take the bait.”
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