Alvin Bragg dodges mentioning signature Trump case as he campaigns for district attorney re-election

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has distanced himself from even mentioning his 2024 prosecution of President Donald Trump over falsifying business records as Bragg works to secure re-election as the Manhattan, New York, top cop. 

Bragg is running for re-election in 2024, as New York City also votes to elect a new mayor in a highly anticipated race. The Manhattan district attorney was first elected to the job during the 2021 election cycle. 

Bragg prosecuted Trump in 2024, when the president was in the midst of his own re-election effort for the Oval Office, on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Trump was found guilty in the case after reporting to the Manhattan, New York, courthouse for weeks to stand trial. 

On the 2025 campaign trail, however, Bragg has distanced himself from his signature case. 

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"Congratulations on your success in prosecuting Donald Trump," a supporter told Bragg during a campaign event earlier in October, The New York Times reported, but Bragg did not acknowledge the comment. 

Bragg joined a debate stage Oct. 24 against Republican challenger Maud Maron, a veteran public defender in the city, and independent candidate Diana Florence, who worked for the Manhattan district attorney's office for 25 years, and again did not mention the signature case that consumed news cycles just more than a year ago. 

At one point, Bragg rattled off high-profile cases prosecuted in recent years, with the moderator of the debate and Republican challenger remarking that the current district attorney did not include Trump in the lineup. 

"My experience throughout my office, and some of these cases I directed, and some I oversaw," Bragg said from the debate stage. "I prosecuted two mayors, a Senate majority leader, a council member, an FBI agent, without regard to their political party. If it was a Democrat, a Republican, Independent."

The moderator chimed in: "I think there's an ex-president in there, too."

"I noticed that Mr. Brag skipped that one as he was running through the politicians that he prosecuted," Republican candidate Maron added.

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Richard Fife of the Bragg campaign told Fox News Digital Friday that Manhattan's top cop "is running on his record of making Manhattan safer with one standard of justice for all."

"He's helped bring down shootings by 66%; invested in mental health services; gotten justice for survivors of sexual assault, wage theft, and tenant harassment; prosecuted more hate crimes and shoplifting cases than ever before, in fact, 6,463 shoplifting cases last year; and more than doubled immediate help for victims of crimes. With the case on appeal, we are limited in what we can say," Fife said in an emailed statement, referring to the New York v. Trump case. 

Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records following his Manhattan criminal trial in May. Bragg's office worked to prove that Trump falsified the business records to conceal a $130,000 payment to former porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election to quiet her claims of an alleged affair in 2006. 

Trump has maintained his innocence in the case and vehemently denied the claims. 

Bragg picked the case up in 2023 after the Justice Department in 2019 had "effectively concluded" its investigation into Trump's payments. And in 2021, the Federal Elections Commission, the agency dedicated to enforcing campaign finance laws, announced that it had dropped a case looking into whether Trump had violated election laws for the payment to Daniels. 

The saga surrounding the case has dragged past the election, including the judge sentencing Trump to unconditional discharge in January, just days before his second inauguration as president. 

Trump repeatedly has called the case a "witch hunt" and "Biden trials" brought forth by Democrats out of an effort to prevent him from winning re-election. 

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"If this were such a great case, why didn't the Southern District bring it?" Trump railed during the trial. "Who looked at it and turned it down? Why didn't numerous other agencies and law enforcement groups look at it? Because it was shown to everybody. And very importantly, why didn't the Federal Elections do anything about it? Because this is federal, it's not state." 

"It's not state. … It's never happened before, I believe. Never happened before … where the state tries to insert itself into federal elections. Never. Nobody's ever seen it. But, you know, Federal Elections took a total pass on it." 

Trump formally appealed the conviction in the case earlier in October. 

"The DA, a Democrat, brought those charges in the middle of a contentious Presidential election in which President Trump was the leading Republican candidate," Trump's attorneys wrote in their appeal of the conviction. "These charges against President Trump were as unprecedented as their political context."

Despite distancing himself from the case in 2025, Bragg celebrated Trump's conviction in 2024 as an example of the district attorney's office "following the facts and the law."

"While this defendant may be unlike any other in American history, we arrived at this trial, and ultimately today at 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," Bragg said at the time. 

"I did my job," he added. "Our job is to follow the facts and the law without fear or favor. And that's exactly what we did."

Bragg brushed off questions from The New York Times when asked about his lack of remarks surrounding the signature case while on the campaign trail, saying the case was still in appeal and that prosecutors are limited on what they can discuss regarding ongoing cases. 

"I'll point you to our briefing," he told the outlet. "I'll point you to prior public statements."