NYC NOW - April 13, 2023: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: April 13, 2023

. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, made history earlier this month as the first prosecutor in the U.S. to charge a former president with a crime. Donald Trump is accused of falsifying business records to hide damaging information in a so-called “catch and kill” scheme. Now, in an effort to halt a House Judiciary Committee inquiry, Bragg has announced he’s suing Ohio Representative Jim Jordan over what he called a brazen and unconstitutional attack of his case against Trump. So who is Alvin Bragg? WNYC reporter Samantha Max joins Janae Pierre for an in-depth look.

Good evening and welcome to NYC Now. I'm Jene Pierre for WNYC. By now, you've heard his name. But if not, allow me to introduce you to Manhattan's top prosecutor. Alvin Bragg, Manhattan's attorney, lifelong Manhattan resident, Nick's fan. Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg made history earlier this month as the first prosecutor in the U.S. to charge a former president with a crime. Donald Trump is accused of falsifying business records to hide

damaging information in a so-called catch-and-kill scheme. Since announcing the former president's indictment, Bragg has taken some heat. We're talking about people's rights, their property rights, their rights to freedom, and I think that Alvin Bragg is infringing on that for purely political. It's a big mistake for whoever is thinking about putting him away. It's a big mistake. The main challenge for District Attorney Bragg will be to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that all these transactions were in furtherance of Trump's election.

This week, Bragg announced he's suing Ohio Representative Jim Jordan over what he called a brazen and unconstitutional attack of his case against Trump. After the break, WNYC reporter Samantha Max joins us to discuss all we need to know about the man leading the case against the former president. Stay with us. Alvin Bragg hasn't been on the job very long as Manhattan DA, but he's already made a legacy for himself. In fact, Sam, he made history over a year ago just by being sworn in, right? Yeah, he's the first black person to lead the district attorney's office in Manhattan. He calls himself a son of Harlem. He grew up in the neighborhood.

And he was also the first person to lead a unit in the state attorney general's office that was created in the early days of the Black Lives Matter movement to investigate killings by law enforcement. and he's part of this nationwide progressive prosecutor movement. So he's really been kind of pushing the boundaries of what it means to be a prosecutor. Okay, so let's look at the big case here against Trump. The former president is facing 34 felony business charges. We know this case will likely move at a snail's pace, but what challenges will the DA's office face? I mean, anyone who has interacted with the court system knows that it is incredibly slow even for just normal people. So when you have an entire team of defense attorneys for a former president, they're going to do everything they can to make it move even slower.

So they'll be basically filing a bunch of motions to try to delay the process. Those could be trying to move the trial elsewhere to somewhere other than Manhattan where they might have a jury that they think would be less biased. They might try to block certain evidence from being shown to a jury in a trial, like that and all those motions, you file them and then you have to wait for a decision, there can be appeal. So all those things take time. And then, of course, the other thing to think about is the 2024 election. We know that there's a good chance this trial is going to be happening smack dab in the middle of a campaign. And while most candidates would not want to be on trial while running for president, someone like Trump might want to fire up the base and, you know,

be at the center of the news cycle. Now, since announcing plans to indict Trump, Bragg has received quite a bit of threats, and Republicans aren't playing nice either. We didn't expect them to. But this week, Bragg filed a lawsuit against Ohio Representative Jim Jordan, who he says is overstepping his authority by interfering in a local criminal prosecution. What's happening there, Sam? So Jim Jordan is asking for a bunch of records related to the DA's office. He wants all the documents and communications within the office and with other agencies

in the office related to the Trump investigation. He's also asking for information about the federal funding that the office receives. And he wants information from former prosecutors who left the office in protest over Bragg's handling of the investigations into Trump. So one of those people is Mark Pomerance. He was part of the investigation into former President Trump. He ended up resigning because he felt like Bragg actually wasn't moving ahead enough on those investigations. He ended up writing a tell-all book. There was a whole media blitz around it, and now the Republicans have subpoenaed him. Bragg just filed a scathing lawsuit to try to block the subpoena,

and he has accused Jim Jordan of overstepping his powers and trying to intervene in a local prosecution. And the lawsuit also outlined all these different threats that Bragg has received. He's gotten like over a thousand calls from Trump supporters. And the former president himself even has been posting on social media threatening messages. Yeah, I remember President Trump actually called Alvin Bragg an animal. Yes. But with all of this unfolding, there's a House Judiciary Committee hearing investigating Bragg.

And one of the witnesses scheduled to testify is Jose Alba. Now, last year, Alba was accused of fatally stabbing a man and Bragg accused him of murder, but then tossed out the charges. Sam, tell us more about that and what's expected at the hearing next week. So Alba, he was a worker at a bodega in Harlem, and Bragg charged him with murder and criminal possession of a weapon for stabbing a man. Based on the surveillance video of what happened, it looked like someone was trying to accost Alba while he was working, came behind the counter, and Alba ended up stabbing him and what he says was self-defense. So there was a big outcry from bodega workers saying, you know, this was a case of self-defense. We're trying to protect ourselves.

It can be a dangerous job. Republicans, they also jumped in. This was happening during the very heated gubernatorial campaign here in New York and the Republican candidate Lee Zeldin. He threw his support behind Alba and then Bragg ended up meeting with bodega workers and deciding to drop the charges in this case. But now we have the House Judiciary Committee coming to town and they're going to be questioning Alba. We don't know too much else about what's going to be happening on Monday, but we do know, based on the committee's website, that they're also going to be questioning someone named Madeline Brame. She chairs the Victim Rights Reform Council and is the mother of a homicide victim.

And Jennifer Harrison, the founder of Victim Rights, New York. Sam, we'll definitely be following your reporting next week to hear more about that. Thanks for having me. That's WNYC reporter Samantha Max. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a date, for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Jenae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.