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Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg holds potentially hundreds of communications appearing to link his office to senior Biden administration officials and other political actors in connection with his unprecedented criminal prosecution of then-former President Donald Trump.
We’ve asked for those records, and he’s not turning them loose. So we’re taking him to court.
Last September, America First Policy Institute launched a formal investigation into the people and motivations behind Bragg’s decision to prosecute Trump.
Our effort had a simple goal: figuring out whether Bragg’s case was a routine legal probe — or lawfare, a politically engineered hit job orchestrated to influence the 2024 election.
The charges brought against Trump were extraordinary.
Never before has a question of federal campaign-finance law — which the FEC declined to pursue, no less — been morphed into a state-level misdemeanor, already time-barred under New York law, then Frankensteined into a felony by alleging it was committed to conceal some other crime never defined by the prosecution, nor unanimously agreed upon by jury.
Confusing? That’s the point. Bragg’s office thrives on obfuscation.
Public records should be accessible. Criminal prosecutions should be transparent.
This case was neither — and still isn’t.
We were drawn to investigate because we saw just too many coincidences to ignore.
Michael Colangelo, a top DOJ official with a focus on white-collar crime, left his Biden administration post to join Bragg’s office just months before Trump was indicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
Judge Juan Merchan, who presided over Bragg’s prosecution, had a history of political donations to Biden and to political groups opposed to Trump, the defendant before him. He was officially “cautioned” on that by the state ethics board.
Merchan’s daughter Loren worked on Kamala Harris’ 2020 campaign and during Trump’s trial served as president of Authentic Campaigns, a progressive political consulting firm hired by the Biden-Harris ticket.
It all paints a curious picture: A DA who campaigned on a promise to take down Trump, aided by a Biden DOJ veteran, bringing legally contorted charges before a judge with clear partisan connections.
If this wasn’t coordinated, it’s one lucky political pile-up.
The American people deserve answers.
In pursuit of those answers, and in defense of the public’s right to know, AFPI submitted a request to Bragg’s office under New York’s Freedom of Information Law in September 2024.
We sought any records that could shed light on whether political influence or coordination played a role in Bragg’s decision-making.
Our request was specific, lawfully submitted and directly tied to one of the most consequential legal proceedings in modern American history.
Ten months later, no records have been produced. None. Though they apparently exist.
Instead of providing transparency, the DA’s office has engaged in delay, double-talk and silence.
We’ve asked for a list of responsive documents. They won’t give one.
We’ve asked which of our specific requests the withheld documents pertain to. They won’t say.
We know, based on our investigation and his office’s limited correspondence with us, that the DA possesses hundreds of records of communications with or about political agents who should have had no influence in a “routine” prosecution, like Lauren Merchan’s Authentic Campaigns.
Bragg refuses to explain why the public isn’t entitled to see them.
There is no legal justification for this blackout. No privilege excuses total stonewalling.
There is only evasion.
It’s been nearly a year. The records exist, and the DA cannot explain why they remain secret.
That alone should raise alarms.
AFPI has now turned to the courts to compel compliance.
The law does not permit selective transparency by the Manhattan DA. It does not allow politically sensitive cases to be shielded from scrutiny.
As the New York Legislature declared when it passed the state’s open-records law in 1977, “The people’s right to know the process of governmental decision-making and to review the documents leading to determinations is basic to our society.”
We agree.
That’s why on July 17, AFPI filed its petition in New York County Superior Court requesting that Bragg’s records, whatever they may reveal, be released to the public.
The law demands openness, and we intend to see it enforced.
Jessica Steinmann is executive general counsel and Jack Casali is an attorney at the Center for Litigation at the America First Policy Institute