From the judge to the prosecutor: the other protagonists of the historic imputation of Donald Trump

Key day in the United States, where the expectation is maximum before the court statement of donald trumpthe first former president to face criminal charges in the history of the North American country.

The former Republican president is accused of buy the silence by stormy daniels illegally during the 2016 campaign to prevent the porn actress from making public the affair they would have had years before, an ‘affair’ that Trump denies. The Prosecutor’s Office also suspects that this $130,000 bribe came from electoral campaign funds, a point that Trump also denies, although he acknowledges the payment, money that he maintains came out of his pocket.

In addition to the defendant himself – who could face up to thirty charges yet to be known – and Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Cliffordthe day has two other major protagonists: Alvin Braggthe first prosecutor who has managed to bring a former US president before a judge, and the magistrate Juan Merchan, who will be in charge of taking his statement. We tell you who they are:

Bragg, the first prosecutor to bring a former president before a judge

The first prosecutor to put a former president on the bench, Alvin Bragg, is also the first African American to serve as Manhattan District Attorney, a position he assumed in January 2022 and in which he succeeded Cyrus Vance, also famous for investigating Trump. A Democrat raised in Harlem, Bragg, 49, decided to study law after being threatened at gunpoint up to six times while growing up, three of them by the police, according to his own account.

A Harvard graduate, he was a federal prosecutor and later earned the Democratic nomination to become District Attorney. He focused his campaign on the judicial system reform to incarcerate fewer people and address the racial discrimination, in addition to investigating Trump. Precisely, last year his office achieved a ruling against the Trump Organizationsentenced to pay 1.6 million dollars for continued tax fraud.

In November last year, it emerged that Bragg had revived an investigation into the former president’s role in paying Daniels, a case his predecessor had dismissed. The accusation, however, has earned him receive all kinds of threats, including an envelope with white powder sent to the offices of the Prosecutor’s Office, which later turned out to be not dangerous.

Also, it has been target of insults from Trump supporters and the tycoon himselfwhich came to be done a photo holding a baseball bat next to his image -which was later deleted- and against whom he has repeatedly attacked through his social network. However, the prosecutor’s office has already made it clear that he will not be intimidated by “attempts to undermine the justice process.”

Merchan, the judge who sentenced the Trump Organization

The person in charge of taking a statement from Donald Trump is the magistrate John Merchanthe veteran judge of Latin American origin who already presided over the trial against the Trump Organization, in which, in addition to the entity itself, it sentenced one of its executives, Allen Weisselberg, to five months in prison. Trump, of course, has already charged the judge, who has he accused of hating him.

However, the trial of the Trump Organization is not the only meeting that Judge Merchan has had with the circle close to the former president, since he is also handling the criminal case in which his former adviser is implicated, Steve Bannonaccused of money laundering, conspiracy and fraud in relation to an organization that raised funds to build the famous wall promised by Trump on the border with Mexico.

Merchan has been a Manhattan Criminal Court judge since 2009. Born in Colombia, he moved to the United States at the age of six and grew up in New York Queens. He graduated from Baruch College and Hofstra University School of Law and began his legal career in the same District Attorney’s Office that has now brought Trump to his court.