Shortly after former President Donald Trump was indicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records on Tuesday, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg made clear that his office “cannot and will not normalize serious criminal conduct.”

What brought these charges to felony level, Bragg said, was their intent — conspiring to promote electoral candidacy by unlawful means — and their actions — in this case, hiding election-related payments that exceeded state and federal campaign contribution limits.

"Under New York state law, it is a felony to falsify business records with the intent to defraud, an intent to conceal another crime," Bragg said. "These are felony cases in New York state."


What You Need To Know

  • Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on Tuesday said he opted to bring the case against former President Donald Trump forward due to access to new witnesses and new information

  • Trump was indicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records Tuesday afternoon

  • At a news conference, Bragg made clear that his office "cannot and will not normalize serious criminal conduct"

In a statement of facts that accompanied the 34-count indictment released Tuesday, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office said that Trump set up a “catch and kill” scheme, working with his personal fixers (including now-disgraced attorney Michael Cohen) and American Media, Inc. (the parent company of the National Enquirer tabloid) to purchase the rights to damaging stories from people — including adult actress Stormy Daniels, former Playboy model Karen McDougal and a former Trump Tower doorman — and burying the stories, to ensure they’ll never be published. 

Suppressing those stories, he said, boosted the Trump candidacy — or, at least prevented it from being harmed.

Had Trump properly recorded those payments — including $130,000 in hush money wired from Cohen to Daniels — they would have been clear violations of campaign finance law. 

“To do so, to make that true statement, would have been to admit a crime,” Bragg said.

So instead, he alleged, Trump and Cohen “mischaracterized repayments to Cohen as income” before New York state tax authorities.

The 34 charges, he later said in response to a reporter’s question, are tied to 34 separate falsely recorded business statements intended to conceal criminal conduct — not just one payment.

“True and accurate business records are important everywhere, to be sure,” Bragg said. “They are all the more important in Manhattan, the financial center of the world.”

To further defend the charges, Bragg stood on his office’s record of charging similar white collar crimes — tax violations, falsifying business records, bank secrecy law violations, false business records seeking to cover up sex crimes — in which someone has repeatedly lied to protect their own interests.

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

When asked why Bragg was bringing these charges now, seven years after the crimes had been committed, Bragg said that the case was brought when it was ready, following a “thorough and rigorous investigation.” 

Access to new witnesses and new information, he said, is why he opted to bring the case forward, after his predecessor and federal prosecutors opted not to do so.

Bragg did, however, decline to explain why he opted against bringing forward charges on false statements related to tax authorities or on alleged election law crimes.

“We are not going to go into our deliberative process on what was brought,” Bragg said. “The charges that were brought were the ones that were brought; the evidence and the law is the basis for those decisions.”

“I bring cases when they’re ready,” he said.