Who Is Alvin Bragg, the D.A. Leading the Prosecution of Trump?

The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, last month became the first prosecutor to bring a criminal case against a current or former American president when a grand jury indicted Donald J. Trump.

Mr. Bragg, 49, a Democrat who had never held public office before last year, now finds himself on the national stage as Mr. Trump and his Republican allies lob attacks at the district attorney.

Congressional Republicans have directly scrutinized Mr. Bragg’s Trump investigation, which resulted in 34 felony charges connected to Mr. Trump’s role in paying hush money to a porn star. On Tuesday, Mr. Bragg sued Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, in an effort to prevent congressional interference into the prosecution of Mr. Trump.

Mr. Bragg, who was elected in November 2021, is a former federal prosecutor and deputy New York attorney general. He was born and raised in Harlem and attended Harvard as an undergraduate and then Harvard Law School. He is the first Black person to lead the district attorney’s office.

Here’s what to know about Mr. Bragg’s background and career:

The district attorney has lived in Harlem for most of his life.

Mr. Bragg was born on Oct. 21, 1973, to Alvin Bragg Sr., a social services worker, and Sadie Bragg, a teacher. He attended Trinity, an elite private school in Manhattan, before going to Harvard.

At college, he became a leader among his fellow students, heading up the Black Students Association. A lengthy 1995 profile in The Harvard Crimson reported that though Mr. Bragg said then he was unlikely to run for political office, “there is a definite sense of the anointed about him.”