By Gerren Gaynor

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is one of three AfricanAmerican prosecutors who is seeking to hold Trump accountable through the legal system.

As many await with bated breath whether former President Donald Trump will be indicted in a $130,000 payoff probe in New York, all eyes are on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg — a Black man — who Trump recently called “racist” amid the looming charges.

Bragg, the first Black person in history to run the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, could become the first prosecutor in history to charge with a crime a former U.S. president; a former U.S. president who is seeking another term; and a U.S. presidential candidate. He has already successfully prosecuted Trump’s businesses in a separate case related to criminal tax fraud.

More broadly, Bragg is one of three AfricanAmerican prosecutors seeking to hold Trump accountable through the legal system.

In Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is continuing her criminal probe of Trump and his involvement in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election in her majorityBlack district. A decision from Willis, who is reportedly considering racketeering and conspiracy charges, could come as soon as this spring.

Meanwhile, in a civil case in New York, Attorney General Letitia James charged the Trump Organization with financial fraud and is moving to bar Trump and three of his adult children from doing business in the state.

Trump has described each prosecutor as racist and at least one of them has had to contact the FBI because of “security concerns.”

The safety of Black prosecutors is a legitimate concern, according to political experts and members of Congress.

Christina M. Greer, associate professor of political science at Fordham University, told theGrio that Black electeds “always have to worry about safety,” reiterating the fact that America has “a history of Black political leaders being harmed, sometimes fatally.”

After Trump called on his supporters to “protest” and “take our nation back” in anticipation of the potential criminal charges, Bragg sent a letter to prosecutors in his office to assure them that law enforcement was working to ensure their safety.

Greer said she hopes that the New York Police Department and “other coordinating security forces” are taking threats made against Bragg and his office seriously. The political analyst noted that Trump supporters have a history of being violent, evidenced by the deadly 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and most notably, the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection in Washington, D.C.

Anthony Coley, a legal analyst and former director of public affairs at the Department of Justice, told theGrio that Trump’s “incendiary” rhetoric is “designed to intimidate prosecutors” and potentially poison the jury pool.” More important, he said, it endangers “the lives of the men and women who are simply seeking justice.”

Coley recalled an incident in Ohio last summer when a Trump supporter called for FBI agents to be killed after the former president’s Mar-a-Lago home was searched for his possession of classified documents. The gunman was killed in a shootout while trying to breach FBI offices in Cincinnati.