Alvin Bragg says he filed case to prevent ‘normalising’ Trump’s ‘criminal conduct’

Former president has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records connected to hush money payments

The New York prosecutor who has charged Donald Trump with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records says he brought the case to prevent “normalising criminal conduct.”

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg told reporters after the former president’s historic arraignment in the city on Tuesday that he had a fundamental responsibility to file the case.

“We cannot and will not normalise serious criminal conduct,” Mr Bragg told a news conference.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks at a press conference after the arraignment of former president Donald Trump in New York on Tuesday, April 4, 2023. (AP)

And he added: “At its core, this case today is one with allegations like so many of our white-collar cases. Allegations that someone lied, again and again, to protect their interests and evade the laws to which we are all held accountable,” he said.

“As this office has done time and time again we today uphold our solemn responsibility to see that everyone stands equal before the law. No amount of money and no amount of power changes that enduring American principle.”

Mr Bragg was pressed about why he had chosen to now file the case against Mr Trump when his predecessor had chosen not to.

“We conducted a thorough and rigorous investigation. I have been doing this for 24 years and I am no stranger to rigorous complex investigations. I bring cases when they are ready the case was ready to be brought and it was brought,” he said.

“We have had available additional evidence that was not available prior to my time here.”

He went on to describe the falsification of business records as the “bread and butter” of his office’s white-collar prosecutors and said they were routinely carried out because of the city’s status as “the business capital of the world.”

He told reporters that the falsification of business records in the case had been done to cover up other crimes, including New York election law to conspire to promote a candidacy through unlawful means, and federal election law on the cap on contribution limits.