(New York) “Before I turned 21, I had a gun pointed at me six times: three times by police officers and three times by people who weren’t police officers. I had a knife to my throat, a semi-automatic pistol to my head, and a homicide victim on my doorstep. »

On January 3, 2022, in a memo to his staff, Manhattan’s first black district attorney, Alvin Bragg, referred to his early experiences with police and criminals as “a son of Harlem.”

This note earned its author his first controversy for other reasons which will be explained later. But it allows us to measure from the outset the distance between the New York of Alvin Bragg and that of Donald Trump, this scion of a wealthy Queens family from whom he obtained the historic indictment last week.

Not that Alvin Bragg was born to poor parents. The 49-year-old lawyer grew up in a middle-class family who lived in Strivers’ Row, an area of ​​Harlem whose beautiful terraced houses have long attracted the upper class of this predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhood.

But Alvin Bragg embodies a version of the American dream that has nothing to do with that of Donald Trump.

We know the story of the son of Queens, who became the first former American president to be indicted for a crime.

We know less about that of Alvin Bragg, whose plot is dictated by a conception of justice marked at the corner of progressivism.

In 1995, this story already caught the attention of the Harvard Crimson, a journal of the prestigious American university, which devoted an article to the future law school graduate entitled “The Anointed One”, a reference to the Messiah. Of him, a university dean said, “I would push him into politics because he is the perfect example of a high-profile politician who can attract votes from white and black voters. »

Two years later, Alvin Bragg finally resolves to run for office under the Democratic banner, announcing his candidacy for the election for the post of Manhattan district attorney, scheduled for November 2021. At the start of his campaign, New York crime is not far from its historic low. And his call for reform of the criminal justice system is part of a national movement that will gain momentum after the May 2020 murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.

But the climate is no longer the same in New York when Alvin Bragg assumes his new functions, on January 1, 2022, after his election. On the same day, a new mayor, Eric Adams, also from the black community, takes the reins of the city after promising to adopt a more traditional approach to combat a sudden increase in crime.

Accused of “wokism” by conservative media, including the New York Post, and criticized by the new head of the NYPD, Alvin Bragg quickly announced the withdrawal of his directive, saying that it had been misinterpreted.

But he is not at the end of his troubles. On February 23, 2022, the two main prosecutors leading an investigation into Donald Trump’s business practices resign. The investigation, started under former Manhattan prosecutor Cyrus Vance, is looking into whether the former president inflated the value of his assets to secure bank loans.

In his resignation letter, the contents of which were disclosed by The New York Times on March 30, 2022, one of the prosecutors claims that Donald Trump is “guilty of numerous crimes” and calls the Manhattan prosecutor’s decision not to prosecute his charged with “gross misconduct”.

But Alvin Bragg is not convinced of the strength of the evidence in this case. His position earned him almost as fierce attack from MSNBC and other progressive media or representatives as he is today from Donald Trump’s allies.

The Manhattan prosecutor has repeated that the investigation into Trump is continuing, but no one, or almost, listens to him or believes him.

However, on August 18, 2022, the tide began to turn. Alvin Bragg scores his first major victory by forcing former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg to plead guilty to 15 counts of fraud and tax evasion. He continues on December 6 of the same year by obtaining a guilty verdict against the company of the former president, also accused of tax evasion.

And he will reveal Tuesday afternoon the charges brought against Donald Trump in connection with the Stormy Daniels case or any other case. He will no doubt then remember the reason why he applied for the position of Manhattan district attorney.

“I’m running because all too often we have two standards of justice: one for the rich, powerful, and connected, and one for everyone else. »