Alvin Bragg was elected as Manhattan’s first Black district attorney Tuesday and will inherit a high-profile investigation into former President Trump’s business.
Bragg, a former chief deputy New York state attorney general, trounced Republican candidate Thomas Kenniff by a roughly 70-point margin in deep-blue Manhattan.
Bragg, who also previously worked as an assistant U.S. attorney with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, won the Democratic primary in July with a plurality of the vote.
He will now take the helm of a prominent probe that has already produced an indictment of both the Trump Organization and Allen Weisselberg, a top executive of the company. They are accused of various fraud and conspiracy charges.
Weisselberg pleaded not guilty to 15 charges, including tax fraud, conspiracy, grand larceny and falsifying business records.
The investigation has drawn national headlines over a fierce court battle over city prosecutors’ ability to subpoena Trump’s tax returns and other records. The legal proceedings went all the way to the Supreme Court twice, and the justices last year ruled by a 7-2 margin that Trump did not enjoy special immunity as a sitting president from the investigation.
Bragg will replace outgoing District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.