In his first three months because the Manhattan district lawyer, Alvin L. Bragg had an uncommon variety of unhealthy days. Feb. 23 was among the many worst.

That day, the 2 prosecutors main his workplace’s inquiry into Donald J. Trump resigned over a disagreement about whether or not to hunt prison prices towards the previous president. After one of many prosecutors’ resignation letters leaked, an uproar ensued. Quickly, Mr. Bragg, a Democrat, was being attacked by many in his personal social gathering and pilloried by late night time comedians.

For Mr. Bragg, it was simply the most recent disaster: He had already been the topic of intense criticism from the opposite aspect of the political spectrum, after a memo he launched in his first days on the job introduced, in advanced legalese, that the workplace would stop to hunt jail and jail time for all however probably the most severe crimes.

Between the backlash to the memo and the fallout from the Trump investigation, Mr. Bragg managed, in lower than 12 weeks, an unlikely feat: He united the New York Publish’s editorial board and the viewers of MSNBC in a posture of mutual disdain. Hardly ever has a politician change into a piñata so rapidly.

The 2 situations have outlined the early days of Mr. Bragg’s chaotic tenure, throughout which political clumsiness has hamstrung his makes an attempt to overtake the workplace. In every, Mr. Bragg appeared to decide on precept: That the workplace shouldn’t deliver instances unjustly, or prosecute them when he doesn’t imagine the details advantage it.

However in every case, the precept behind the choice was overshadowed by the severity of the response, undermining the brand new district lawyer’s long-held ambitions to alter the prison justice system in Manhattan.

In an interview on the day the Trump prosecutors resigned, Mr. Bragg expressed a want to place his head down and do the work of the workplace. He hopes that driving down gun violence and the inhabitants at Rikers whereas pushing forward on the Trump investigation — which he insisted this week was persevering with — will “neutralize” the noise round him. Elected prosecutors, Mr. Bragg mentioned, shouldn’t act as politicians within the conventional sense of the phrase.

“The second we begin pondering we’re politicians, we’ve taken an actual fallacious flip,” Mr. Bragg mentioned.

However in interviews with greater than 20 folks carefully monitoring the district lawyer, critics and supporters alike recommended that Mr. Bragg’s failure to have interaction with the political realities of his workplace jeopardized his possibilities of carrying out his targets.

“I believe that as a first-time elected official, there’s been a rocky adjustment to go from campaigning to truly doing the job,” mentioned Daniel S. Goldman, who was a federal prosecutor in the identical workplace as Mr. Bragg and later led the primary impeachment inquiry into Mr. Trump.

“That transition has been bumpy for Alvin and I believe that while you get off to a foul begin, it’s very tough to get again heading in the right direction,” Mr. Goldman mentioned. “And I believe what he’s hoping is that he’ll concentrate on doing the work and in the end folks will see that the insurance policies he’s applied shall be productive.”

‘A very arduous dialog to have’

When Mr. Bragg started his marketing campaign for district lawyer in June 2019, crime in New York Metropolis was hovering close to a historic low, the pandemic was 9 months away from pummeling the town and Mr. Trump had but to be impeached even as soon as.

However by the point he took workplace, gun violence had risen sharply and the town was enduring yet one more surge of Covid instances.

Mr. Bragg had gained by emphasizing the necessity for a stability between public security and making the justice system extra truthful. As he started his tenure, although, many New Yorkers had been way more targeted on the primary plank of his platform.

“He’s making an attempt to have a dialog about undoing some actually unjust insurance policies within the top of crime spikes and a worldwide pandemic and emotions of unease,” mentioned Christina Greer, a political science professor at Fordham.

That may be a tough dialog to have, she mentioned, significantly with some white voters who may be extra snug with a progressive method to prison justice in idea than in apply.

A lot of the marketing campaign for district lawyer was performed over Zoom, and the opposite candidates had been, for probably the most half, as new to politics as Mr. Bragg himself.

A former regulation professor and Sunday faculty trainer, Mr. Bragg embodied each roles when talking in these boards: He listened thoughtfully, and, when it was his flip, he spoke in paragraphs, usually interrupting or enhancing himself in the course of a sentence.

He has remained calm and deliberative in his days in workplace, even because the strain on him has ramped up. His response to questions in regards to the Trump investigation in February was attribute: “There’s part of me, the non-lawyer half, that desires to have a dialog,” he mentioned. “However the half that’s been a profession prosecutor tells me I can’t.”

Mr. Bragg’s prosecutorial philosophy is roughly much like that of others who had been elected in the course of the Trump presidency and vowed to combat racism and injustice within the prison authorized system.

However in New York this 12 months, outstanding elected officers have taken a extra reasonable stance on prison justice coverage. Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams each pushed, efficiently, for modifications to the 2019 overhaul of the state’s bail regulation. Mr. Adams has reintroduced a troubled anti-gun unit to the streets of New York.

“The entire prison justice reform motion could be very a lot on the defensive,” mentioned Janos Marton, a former candidate for Manhattan district lawyer who endorsed Mr. Bragg after dropping out of the race.

In testimony to the Metropolis Council final month, Mr. Bragg outlined his priorities: He mentioned his workplace would establish and prosecute the folks driving gun violence in Manhattan, kind a devoted hate crimes unit to cope with a pointy rise in focused assaults, and strengthen a unit that opinions the workplace’s convictions to protect towards wrongful imprisonment.

Maybe the fullest realization of Mr. Bragg’s marketing campaign guarantees has include the announcement of a brand new division devoted to diverting defendants away from jail or jail and towards supportive providers. Mr. Bragg has mentioned that he believes within the worth of such work to thwart recidivism and put troubled people on a greater path.

However the rise in shootings and Mr. Bragg’s stumbles might have damage his possibilities of realizing his agenda. In early February he clarified his first-week memo, which applied the insurance policies he had introduced on the marketing campaign path, saying his prosecutors weren’t certain by his steering and had been free to find out the course of their instances.

“Probably the most disappointing factor was how rapidly he appeared to cave to this prevailing, fear-mongering narrative,” mentioned Amanda Jack, a member of 5 Boro Defenders, a coalition of public defenders.

She mentioned that in the course of the marketing campaign, Mr. Bragg had been “in a position to please all sides, which we had been at all times a bit bit suspicious of however hopeful. However now I’m suspicious of it and feeling a bit cynical.”

An investigation with an unsure future

The Manhattan district lawyer’s workplace is the nation’s highest-profile native prosecutor’s workplace — a distinction sharpened by the high-stakes investigation into Mr. Trump.

For 3 years, the workplace had investigated whether or not the forty fifth president had dedicated a criminal offense, an inquiry that in its later phases targeted on whether or not Mr. Trump misrepresented the worth of his belongings.

Mark F. Pomerantz, a revered veteran prosecutor who got here out of retirement to work on the investigation, felt assured that the investigators may show it.

Earlier than leaving workplace in December, Mr. Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., directed Mr. Pomerantz and Carey Dunne, one other prosecutor working the investigation, to proceed with a grand jury presentation towards Mr. Trump.

Mr. Bragg was much less certain that the workplace had the required proof. In a collection of conferences, Mr. Pomerantz and Mr. Dunne tried to persuade Mr. Bragg to alter his thoughts. He didn’t.

A month later The New York Occasions revealed Mr. Pomerantz’s resignation letter, through which the prosecutor mentioned he believed that Mr. Trump was responsible of quite a few felonies and that declining to carry him accountable could be a “grave failure of justice.”

Mr. Trump has repeatedly described the investigation as a politically motivated “witch hunt,” and in an announcement on Friday accused Manhattan prosecutors of misconduct orchestrated by the Democratic Social gathering.

For weeks, Mr. Bragg made no public remark. However on Thursday, he broke his silence, releasing an announcement on the investigation and giving numerous interviews to information shops.

He mentioned that the inquiry was ongoing and advised The Occasions that his workplace had interviewed new witnesses and was taking a look at new proof.

He was keen to clarify intimately why he felt he couldn’t reveal extra — citing each the ideas of the regulation and his moral obligation — and didn’t focus on at size the dispute that led the 2 prosecutors to resign.

The true standing of the investigation stays tough to discern. Mr. Dunne and Mr. Pomerantz thought that their case was robust sufficient to deliver to the grand jury in February. It’s unclear what sort of proof would persuade Mr. Bragg to do the identical, or whether or not his workplace is on the trail to acquiring such proof.

Mr. Bragg vowed that he could be clear about his ultimate resolution on whether or not or to not indict Mr. Trump. Prosecutors with expertise within the district lawyer’s workplace mentioned it was not solely applicable however needed for him to take action.

“He owes it to the general public to face up and to inform us the reality,” mentioned Robert Gottlieb, who was an assistant district lawyer within the Seventies in Manhattan.

However Mr. Bragg mentioned that whereas he understood the will for extra readability in regards to the present state of the investigation, he was ambivalent about commenting in any respect. He additionally expressed concern that he was not being taken at his phrase.

“I perceive the general public wanting info right here,” he mentioned. “I additionally need the general public to have religion when the district lawyer says one thing’s taking place.”

A few of Mr. Bragg’s supporters imagine that as the primary Black particular person to guide the workplace, he’s at a drawback.

The Rev. Al Sharpton mentioned he had heard repeatedly from listeners who name in to his radio present that they proceed to face with Mr. Bragg, and imagine his critics are “in search of any purpose to leap on Alvin as a result of they by no means wished to see a Black man sit on this coveted seat.”

“If he was not safe on whether or not or not he may get a conviction, then he shouldn’t have proceeded,” Mr. Sharpton mentioned of Mr. Bragg’s resolution on the Trump investigation.

“The worst factor on the earth could be for the primary Black D.A. of Manhattan,” he added, “to prosecute for the primary time in American historical past, a former president of the US and lose the case on a worldwide stage.”

Barring extraordinary circumstances, Mr. Bragg will lead the district lawyer’s workplace for at the very least one other three years and eight months, and people who solely know him for the Trump case or the Day One memo could have an extended file to evaluate.

“Can he recuperate? That is early days,” mentioned Daniel R. Alonso, a former prime deputy to Mr. Vance, mentioned in late March. “He hasn’t even completed his third month.”

Mr. Vance declined to touch upon Mr. Bragg’s selections. He is aware of how tough it may be to take over the decision-making, and the way unhelpful it’s when your predecessors second-guess your work.

However he did say he understood Mr. Bragg’s impulse towards letting that work converse for itself, and his hope to be seen holistically.

“You need to be judged by the totality of your work,” Mr. Vance mentioned. “However that’s not straightforward to do in a metropolis like New York and a county like Manhattan.”

Ben Protess and William Ok. Rashbaum contributed reporting.