“This evening we contacted Mr. Trump’s attorney to coordinate his surrender … for arraignment on a Supreme Court indictment, which remains under seal,” a spokesperson from Bragg’s office said in a statement, The Epoch Times reported. “Guidance will be provided when the arraignment date is selected.”

Trump is the first-ever U.S. president to face criminal charges.

The former president is accused of making a $130,000 payment to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, in exchange for her silence on an alleged sexual encounter with her. Trump has consistently denied having any extramarital relationship with the woman.

Joe Tacopina, Trump’s lawyer, told The Epoch Times that the former president is expected to be in New York City next week for arraignment. Tacopina suggested that April 4 could be the date of his arraignment.

Grew up in Harlem

Bragg, who took office in 2022, won the Democratic primary and then the general election in November 2021, making him Manhattan’s first black district attorney. New York City has five elected DAs—one for each borough.

He is the fourth elected Manhattan DA in the last 80 years. He was preceded by DA Cyrus Vance Jr., who retired at the end of 2021 after 12 years.

The 49-year-old grew up in Harlem, according to his official biography. He earned his B.A. from Harvard University and his J.D. at Harvard Law School.

Bragg has spent more than two decades working in the criminal justice system.

Before becoming DA, Bragg served as an Assistant Attorney General for the state of New York and as an assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

During his campaign, Bragg made promises to indict Trump, and when he took office, he inherited a yearslong grand jury investigation of the alleged payment to Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump was implicated by his former attorney Michael Cohen as part of a plea deal. In 2018, Cohen was sentenced to prison and ordered to pay a $50,000 fine after pleading guilty to eight counts, including criminal tax evasion and campaign finance violations. Under Vance, the case stalled. The Federal Election Commission also looked into the matter but dropped its investigation.

But after taking office, Bragg had concerns about the strength of the case against Trump, leading to the resignation of two lead investigators.

Earlier this year, Bragg convened a new grand jury and proceeded with the case.

High-Profile Cases

Bragg, who describes himself as a white-collar prosecutor, has been involved in a number of high-profile cases.

Since becoming DA, he announced an indictment against Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon who is accused of defrauding donors in a fundraising scheme to build the wall along the southern border.

He was also involved in two cases against the Trump Organization.

Allen Weisselberg, chief financial officer for the Trump Organization and the Trump Payroll Corp., was charged under Vance, Bragg’s predecessor. The companies were charged with tax fraud and accused of reducing payroll liability from executive salaries through untaxed bonuses and millions in luxury perks.

Weisselberg pleaded guilty to the charges. He was sentenced to five months in jail and agreed to testify against the Trump companies.

Bragg oversaw the case against the Trump Organization, which was found guilty late last year. The Trump Organization and Trump Payroll Corp. were fined $810,000 and $800,000, respectively. Trump, who denied involvement, was not personally charged in the case.

Bragg also represented the family of Eric Garner, who died after being placed in a chokehold by a police officer in 2014.

Bragg’s Campaign Backed by Soros?

Billionaire George Soros, 92, founder of Open Society Foundations, is known for putting millions of dollars behind liberal prosecutors and political candidates but has claimed no connection to Bragg.

Florida Gov. Ron Desantis called out Bragg as being “Soros-backed” in response to Bragg’s announcement of the indictment against Trump. Many Republicans, including Trump, have concurred with DeSantis.

“The weaponization of the legal system to advance a political agenda turns the rule of law on its head. It is un-American,” DeSantis wrote on Twitter. “The Soros-backed Manhattan District Attorney has consistently bent the law to downgrade felonies and to excuse criminal misconduct. Yet, now he is stretching the law to target a political opponent,” he said.

“Florida will not assist in an extradition request given the questionable circumstances at issue with this Soros-backed Manhattan prosecutor and his political agenda.”

When Soros was asked about his connection to Bragg, he denied contributing to the prosecutor’s campaign, adding that he did not know him.

“As for Alvin Bragg, as a matter of fact I did not contribute to his campaign and I don’t know him,” Soros wrote in a Twitter exchange with Semafor journalist Steve Clemons. “I think some on the right would rather focus on far-fetched conspiracy theories than on the serious charges against the former president.”

Soros also pointed to his op-ed in The Wall Street Journal titled “Why I Support Reform Prosecutors,” which he said explains why he has donated to “reform-minded” prosecutors.

In May 2021, Soros donated $1 million to the Color of Change PAC, according to Open Secrets.

During the same period, the Color of Change PAC endorsed and spent money backing Bragg’s campaign.

What Else?

After taking office, Bragg issued a “Day 1 Memo – FACT SHEET” with a list of his policy changes, including not charging people with resisting arrest for a non-criminal offense, fare evasion, prostitution, and other misdemeanor offenses. (pdf)

New York City police unions have accused him of being soft on crime.

“Criminals know that @ManhattanDA will bend over backwards to protect them, not law-abiding New Yorkers,” the Police Benevolent Association wrote on Twitter last summer, CBS News reported.

Paul DiGiacomo, president of the Detectives Endowment Association, has described Bragg as “a pro-criminal politician.”

Article cross-posted from our premium news partners at The Epoch Times.

Dr. Michael Kirk Moore, the owner of the Plastic Surgery Institute of Utah in Midvale, has been charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), according to court documents (pdf).

Moore’s office manager Kari Burgoyne, receptionist Sandra Flores, neighbor Kristin Andersen, and the Plastic Surgery Institute are also charged in the case. The defendants are accused of running a vaccine scheme out of the physician’s business.

Moore and Andersen were allegedly members of a “private organization seeking to ‘liberate’ the medical profession from government and industry conflicts of interest,” the documents state.

In May 2021, Moore signed an agreement with the CDC to administer COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination cards. Court documents claim that Moore and Burgoyne then ordered “hundreds of doses of COVID-19 vaccines,” which they began receiving at the plastic surgery center in October 2021.

Working the Plan

After receiving the vaccine doses, the doctor and three others started notifying “fraudulent vax card seekers” that they could “receive fraudulently completed COVID-19 Vaccination Record Cards from the Plastic Surgery Institute without having to receive a COVID-19 vaccine,” the documents state.

Those seeking fraudulent vaccination cards were required to pay $50 cash or make a $50 donation to Moore and Andersen’s private organization.

Burgoyne allegedly managed the “day-to-day logistics of the scheme,” while Andersen handled the screening process. Once a person was successfully screened and had made their $50 payment, Andersen would send them forms to complete.

“Flores and other employees would then provide the Fraudulent Vax Card Seekers with the completed COVID-19 Vaccine Record Cards without administering any COVID-19 vaccine to them,” the document reads.

The group also gave fake vaccines to children when requested by the minors’ parents.

“Dr. Moore, Burgoyne, and Flores also arranged, at times, to administer or have others administer saline shots to minor children at the request of their parents so that the minor children would think they were actually receiving a COVID-19 vaccine,” according to the document.

The names of the fraudulent vaccination card seekers were uploaded to the Utah Statewide Immunization Information System.

Between Oct. 15, 2021, and Sept. 6, 2022, the Plastic Surgery Institute allegedly received about 2,200 doses of the vaccine and destroyed nearly 2,000 of them at a value of more than $28,000. The doses were destroyed “usually by drawing them from the bottle and then squirting them down the drain from a syringe.”

At least 1,937 fraudulent vaccination cards were allegedly sold at $50 each for a total of $96,850. The vaccination cards and the vaccine doses amounted to a combined value of nearly $125,000.

Undercover Agents

The scheme fell apart when an undercover agent managed to complete the “referral only” process and acquire a fake vaccination card. A second agent went through the process and then asked Flores if his children could also receive a similar vaccine record card.

Flores “wrote on a Post-it note that ‘with 18 & younger, we do a saline shot,’ indicating that minors could receive saline shots and obtain the cards without receiving the vaccine,” the court papers say.

The government is seeking forfeiture of all remaining COVID-19 vaccine doses in Moore’s possession, all remaining vaccination cards, and a judgment of $124,878.

Moore, Burgoyne, Flores, and Andersen are expected to make their initial court appearances on Jan. 26.

Article cross-posted from our premium news partners at The Epoch Times.