Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg — the first prosecutor to put an American president on trial — gloated Thursday over his historic conviction of Donald Trump, saying, “I did my job.”
“Donald J Trump has been convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records,” the progressive prosecutor boasted as he was flanked by his team that tried the hush money case just after Trump was found guilty.
Bragg refused to answer whether he would seek jail time for Trump, who faces up to four years behind bars for each of the charges. At a minimum, the ex-president would be put on probation.
“This type of white-collar prosecution is core to what we do at the Manhattan District Attorney’s office,” Bragg continued, thanking each of the “12 everyday New Yorkers” who served on the jury for being “careful and “attentive” throughout the process.
“I did my job. Our job is to follow the facts and the law without fear or favor and that’s exactly what we did here. There are many voices out there, the only voice that matters is the voice of the jury and the jury has spoken,” he said.
Asked if he had a response to Trump singling him out for criticism — which included accusations that the case was an attempt to stop him from winning the 2024 presidential election — Bragg answered: “I do not.”
“While this defendant may be unlike any other in American history, we arrived at this trial and ultimately this verdict in the same manner as every other case that comes through the courtroom doors — by following the facts, and the law, and doing so without fear or favor.”
Trump was convicted of fudging company documents tied to claims he had his then-fixer Michael Cohen — the prosecution’s star witness — made a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels in the lead-up to the 2016 election to silence her story about having an affair with Trump.
Bragg brought forth the unprecedented criminal case in April 2023, greatly expanding the investigations into Trump and his businesses that began under his predecessor Cyrus Vance Jr.
In 2022, Bragg’s office convicted the Trump Organization on charges of orchestrating a 15-year tax fraud, which came after Manhattan’s top prosecutor successfully pressured the company’s longtime chief financial officer into admitting to evading taxes on company perks like a luxury car and rent-free apartment.
Trump was not personally charged in that case.
Bragg also inherited Vance’s probe into whether Trump had misrepresented the values of his real estate properties, but declined to bring charges in the case, prompting uproar within the district attorney’s office.
The DA also had experience suing Trump while serving as the state’s chief deputy attorney general from 2017 to 2018, leading to the shutdown of the Donald J. Trump Foundation and payment of $2 million in court-ordered damages.
In April of 2022, Bragg shockingly convened a grand jury to secure the indictment accusing Trump of falsely recording payments to lawyer Michael Cohen as legal expenses to make hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
The pair were bribed in the months leading up to the 2016 election to keep quiet about their previous extramarital affairs with Trump.
Cohen — a convicted perjurer who testified that he lied under oath in the past to “protect” Trump — was Bragg’s star witness in the hush money trial.
Cohen testified that he altered financial records to create shell companies that he used for the payoff to Daniels and others.
Trump’s guilty verdict makes him the first US president in history to become a convicted felon.
“I want to thank this fine prosecution team, embodying the finest traditions of this office — professionalism, integrity, dedication and service. They are model public servants and I am proud and humbled to serve side by side with them,” Bragg celebrated Thursday.
Trump has already doubled down on his claims of innocence, telling reporters outside the courthouse that he was subjected to a “rigged, disgraceful trial.”
“The real verdict will be Nov. 5 by the people … I’m a very innocent man,” the glum ex-president told reporters, blaming the ordeal on President Biden, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and the judge who oversaw the trial.
