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Gubernatorial hopefuls slammed new Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s controversial policy of not prosecuting certain low-level crimes while downgrading other charges, with some calling for his removal.
“Bragg can’t pick and choose what laws not to enforce. You can’t say, ‘I’m not going to enforce the law,’ ” said Long Island Congressman Tom Suozzi, a Democrat challenging Gov. Kathy Hochul in the Democratic primary, told The Post.
Bragg also is a Democrat.
“His policy sends a very bad message. This is a green light for chaos,” Suozzi said.
Hochul, a Democrat running to keep the executive seat she assumed when three-term Democrat Andrew Cuomo resigned amid a sexual harassment scandal, declined requests for comment.
Three Republican candidates for governor — Long Island Rep. Lee Zeldin, Rob Astorino and Andrew Giuliani — said they would remove Bragg from office if they were in the executive seat, for failing to enforce the law. They said Hochul should do so.
“You can’t have a vibrant city if criminals are being coddled,” said Astorino, the former Westchester County executive. “It’s absurd and dangerous and we can’t stand for it.”
“It is illegal what he’s doing. As governor I would use the authority under the state constitution to remove Bragg from office.”
Zeldin, during an interview with Joe Piscopo on AM 970 The Answer, said, “If I was governor I would remove Alvin Bragg altogether. Why? Because he’s refusing to do his job”
“If he wants to be a criminal defense attorney, he should resign and represent the criminals. You have to make sure the streets belong to the law-abiding citizens, not the criminals.”
Meanwhile, Giuliani is holding a press conference Monday outside the governor’s Manhattan office — joined by Curtis Sliwa, the GOP candidate for mayor last year — calling on Hochul to “remove DA Bragg from office.”
“Both Sliwa and Giuliani are deeply concerned that DA Bragg’s actions will only enable criminal activity in the streets of Manhattan,” the duo said in the press advisory.
Bragg on Saturday defended his policies, which include instructions to his prosecutors to stop seeking prison sentences for many crimes and to downgrade felony charges in cases including armed robberies and drug dealing.
“I’m new to politics but I’m steadfast. We are going to stay the course,” Bragg said at the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network headquarters.
“We said we were going to marry fairness and safety and we laid out a specific plan,”
he said. “We put on the website, we put it in print and this week after January 1st we got down to work and we are doing what we said we would do.”
Bragg said some career criminals needed to be connected to mental health or addiction services, instead of imprisoned.
“This is going to make us safer. It’s intuitive. It’s common sense,” he said. “I don’t understand the push back.”
He insisted he would be tough on guns.
“If you go into the store in Manhattan and used a gun to rob that store, that’ is armed robbery, that is serious and we will be prosecuting armed robbery in Manhattan,” Bragg said.
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