It’s only Jan. 11 and yet the newly-elected, progressive Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg is facing a recall over his stance on not prosecuting hardened criminals.
Potential Republican challengers on Monday to Gov. Kathy Hochul are demanding that she recall his position, Both Andrew Giuliani and Congressman Lee Zeldin in separate news conferences called on the governor to take action.
“It is absolutely crazy. It is time that Hochul removes Bragg from office,” Giuliani said at a news conference outside her Manhattan office.
“New Yorkers are tired of this pathetic inaction by the governor, they’re tired of this cowardly, deafening silence day after day and they are passionate about the need to strengthen public policy, public safety, the rule of law and to back our men and women in blue,” Zeldin said at his news conference outside the Manhattan DA’s office downtown.
It’s certainly not only Republicans who are up in arms about Bragg’s progressive stance on crime. Eric Adams’ new Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell also blasted the DA saying her police force can’t do their job effectively if prosecutors charge felons with misdemeanors and allow criminals to resist arrest and not charge them with that crime.
New York City business leaders are also pushing back hard on Bragg’s new guidelines.
The Partnership for New York City, the Big Apple’s largest business advocacy organization, is planning a meeting with Bragg next week to hammer home their concerns over soaring crime rates in the city.
“I have never heard so much spontaneous upset,” CEO Kathryn Wylde told The New York Post. “My members are saying ‘what is this?’ I told Bragg that our members are very upset.”
“Of course we’re worried about this,” Wylde said, adding that one prominent business leader believed that, as written, Bragg’s policy would essentially allow a criminal to go free if he robbed a painting from the Metropolitan Museum of Art without a gun.
Even Democratic Congressman Tom Suozzi, who is challenging Hochul in a primary for governor has demonized Bragg.
“Bragg can’t pick and choose what laws not to enforce. You can’t say, ‘I’m not going to enforce the law,’ ”Suozzi said over the weekend.