DA Alvin Bragg deluged with death threats, racist harassment since Trump’s hush money trial conviction

NEW YORK — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has been bombarded with death threats and harassing messages in the three weeks since his office secured Donald Trump’s conviction, the Daily News has learned.

More than 100 abusive messages obtained by The News targeted toward the DA via his campaign website denigrated him in vile and typo-laden terms, calling him the n-word and racist slurs like “Savage (...) primate, F--king (...) rapist” and “GORILLA.”

“Bragg in Trouble, Alvin a Bad Evil Man,” read one message sent through a signup form, which another sender used to transmit threats via an email address named “ThisMeansWar.”

The missives were provided to Bragg’s NYPD security detail and shared with The News by a source who wished to remain anonymous. They represent a significant increase in the deluge of abuse directed toward the DA at work and addresses associated with his campaign since Trump was first indicted, two sources told The News.

Among the threats the DA received during Trump’s seven-week trial shared with The News was a packet sent from a Portland, Oregon, address to Bragg’s campaign mailbox featuring a photo of a noose with a cutout of his head stuck beside it.

“I am past the point of just wanting them in prison,” read a caption on the printed-out picture, accompanied by another of the DA’s head affixed to a symbol for feces.

Trump, 78, became the first president in the nation’s history to be convicted of a crime on May 30 when a jury found him guilty of falsifying New York business records to conceal a scheme to hide information from voters in 2016, including claims he cheated on his wife, Melania, with porn star Stormy Daniels in 2006.

The former president and his staunch backers in the Republican party have relentlessly targeted Bragg since around the time of Trump’s arrest, as well as the judge who presided over his trial, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, and their relatives. White powder scares and bogus bomb threats have ensued, many with messages mirroring the language and baseless conspiracy theories boosted by Trump and his allies, necessitating enhanced security.

A Utah man killed in a shootout with the FBI in August, Craig DeLeeuw Robertson, was federally charged following Trump’s indictment with making death threats against the DA— writing on Facebook that he’d be waiting for him “in the courthouse parking garage with my suppressed Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm” — hours after Trump called on his followers to “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”

When asked about the recent threats, spokespeople for the DA’s office and Bragg’s campaign office declined to comment, as did Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche. Trump’s campaign spokesman could not be reached. Reps for the NYPD and the FBI declined to speak to authorities’ response to the wave of threats. A spokesman for state court administrators declined to say whether Merchan has also experienced increased threats.

The prosecution is due to expand on their arguments opposing Trump’s request to end a gag order preventing him from publicly commenting on trial participants, including the jury, the prosecution team, court staff, and family members of all involved, including those of Merchan and Bragg.

Prosecutors may shed more light on the surge following the guilty verdict against Trump in this week’s filings. When they requested the gag order in February, they told the court the NYPD’s threat assessment and protection unit had detected 89 threats against the DA in 2023, up from a single one he’d received before Trump’s indictment.

“The count of threats and terroristic mailings described above does not include thousands of harassing, racist, and offensive emails, phone calls, and text messages related to the People v. Trump prosecution and directed to the District Attorney, Assistant District Attorneys assigned to this prosecution, and members of the Office’s executive staff,” prosecutors wrote in February.

The presumptive Republican nominee has argued the gag order impinges on his free speech rights and that he should be free to publicly attack witnesses who testified at the trial under a subpoena, including his former fixer Michael Cohen and Daniels, and the jury now that the trial is over. None of the jurors, whose identities were kept anonymous, have spoken out since returning the historic verdict.

Bragg and Merchan join those involved in Trump’s other cases frequently subjected to his ire, including the judge on his civil fraud case, Arthur Engoron, whose house was targeted with bogus bomb threats the morning of closing arguments in January, and his chief law clerk, Allison Greenfield, who was bombarded with misogynistic and antisemitic abuse after Trump falsely claimed she was dating Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-Manhattan) and part of a plot to take him down.

An upstate New York man was arrested in April for threatening to kill the judge and state Attorney General Tish James if they didn’t drop the case against Trump.

When she took the stand against Trump in January, E. Jean Carroll, who Trump was found liable of sexually abusing and defaming in May 2023, the writer said she was flooded with threats from the ex-president’s supporters after she came forward with her allegations.

Carroll, 80, testified that she slept with a loaded gun and trained her pit bull to patrol the grounds of her house, hired private security, and found herself constantly checking to see if she was being followed. Carroll’s lawyer declined to say whether she’s also experienced an uptick in threats.

The combined more than $91 million Trump has been ordered to pay Carroll for sexually abusing and defaming her hasn’t deterred him, as he continues to claim he doesn’t know her and that she made up the assault.

Bragg, who did not wish to comment for this story, has sought to avoid taking the bait, asserting after the verdict that he had nothing to say about Trump’s constant attacks against him.

“These hateful and constant attempts to intimidate and harass Alvin are frightening,” one source close to the DA said. “But I know Alvin is not deterred from doing his job.”

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