纽约——八天后唐纳德·特朗普下个月将满75岁，纽约市的选民们将在一个选举这对前总统肯定会有影响。
这不是另一场白宫竞选，而是民主党初选中对曼哈顿下一任地区检察官的投票——如果对特朗普业务的持续调查发现犯罪行为，他可能最终会处理起诉。
现任地方检察官小塞鲁斯·万斯将于今年年底离任，这意味着他很有可能将两年的调查移交给他的继任者。
在本周宣布州司法部长办公室已加入检察官办公室对特朗普的刑事调查后，谁将接管的问题变得更加紧迫——对封口费支付、财产估价、税收策略、高管薪酬和其他交易进行了全面调查。
在一个民主党占主导地位的地区，该党6月22日的初选很有可能决定获胜者。
八名候选人已经明确表示，他们不怕与前总统较量，但大多数人都小心翼翼地远离公开的反特朗普言论。
“在没有看到所有事实和证据的情况下，我不能说我会具体做什么，但如果唐纳德·特朗普或特朗普的任何一个人在曼哈顿犯下罪行，我会起诉他们，”候选人伊莱扎·奥林斯(Eliza Orlins)说，她是一名公设辩护律师，曾在《幸存者》中担任选手。
另一位候选人、前助理地方检察官、前约翰·杰伊学院检察创新研究所所长露西·朗(Lucy Lang)表示:“现在比以往任何时候都更重要的是，地方检察官办公室应被理解为不是一个政治办公室，地方检察官不应被视为与任何人同床共枕。”。
这个活跃的领域包括曼哈顿地区检察官办公室的三名前检察官——郎、莉兹·克罗蒂(Liz Crotty)和戴安娜·弗洛伦斯(Diana Florence)——以及两名前联邦检察官程昕婷·法哈迪安·韦恩斯坦(·法哈迪安·韦恩斯坦)和阿尔文·布拉格(Alvin Bragg)。
三名候选人从未担任过检察官，包括奥林斯、民权律师塔哈尼·阿布希和州议会成员丹·夸特。
在拥挤的场地上没有出现明显的领先者。
特朗普的调查被前总统谴责为“政治迫害”，对他的政治未来和公司的命运具有重大影响。
特朗普不是这场竞选中唯一的讨论话题，人们对街头犯罪的担忧重新燃起，对刑事司法和检察官作用的辩论也在继续，这种辩论在一年前明尼阿波利斯警方杀害乔治·弗洛伊德(George Floyd)后再次出现。
福特汉姆大学(Fordham University)政治学教授克里斯蒂娜·格里尔(Christina Greer)表示:“在竞选之初，或许是去年，许多人认为特朗普将是主要的谈论点，但他似乎并不是这批候选人的主要问题。”“他有一长串问题，但犯罪和地方检察官如何起诉特定案件似乎是更有先见之明的问题。”
自今年年初以来，该市已发生超过155起凶杀案，为2011年以来的最高水平。其他主要犯罪类别，包括抢劫、入室盗窃和重罪袭击，仍基本保持在冠状病毒大流行之前的水平。
这场竞争可能决定下一任地方检察官是否会继续刑事司法改革，近年来的改革包括减少毒品起诉和在等候审判期间长期关押较少的被告。
克罗蒂获得了执法工会的支持，他们认为她是最关注公共安全的候选人。其他候选人获得了具有改革意识的活动家和组织的支持。
万斯的办公室表示，他将在任期结束前继续领导特朗普的调查。
他聘请了前黑手党检察官马克·波美兰茨(Mark Pomerantz)协助调查，并在2月份获得了特朗普8年的纳税申报单，结束了一场漫长的法律斗争。
万斯的前首席助理地区检察官丹尼尔·R·阿隆索(Daniel R. Alonso)不是候选人，他说特朗普的案子“交给一个知道自己在做什么、有能力、有经验、有判断力、不政治思维的人”是至关重要的。
“坦率地说，我认为选民们对这个问题关注不够，”阿隆索说。
至少，候选人试图传达这样的信息:他们不会轻易放过有权有势的人。
2012年，奥尔林斯指责万斯拒绝对特朗普的两个大孩子伊万卡和小唐纳德提出指控，此前万斯调查了他们在曼哈顿一个公寓项目中诈骗客户的指控。万斯断定没有足够的犯罪证据。
奥尔林斯告诉美联社，“我认为，如果赛·万斯早点这么做，如果他提起诉讼并且没有拒绝起诉，我们可能就不会有现在的局面——我们可能永远不会有唐纳德·特朗普总统。”
万斯在特朗普早期调查中的决定是他12年任期内几起批评者称他屈服于强大利益的案件之一。
万斯因在2011年撤销对法国金融家多米尼克·斯特劳斯-卡恩的强奸指控而受到批评，在2015年，也就是他最终被定罪的五年前，拒绝了起诉哈维·韦恩斯坦的机会，并在2016年与一位关系良好的妇科医生达成协议，以避免因涉嫌性侵犯患者而入狱。
布拉格说他将废除他认为的办公室的“两种司法系统”。
阿布希说，她“永远不会将徽章或银行账户置于法律之上”。
克罗蒂说:“归根结底，你的案件事实是什么，这个人有多强大并不重要，重要的是你的事实有多强大。”
法哈迪安·温斯坦吹嘘她接手复杂白领案件的经历。弗洛伦斯也谈到了她起诉房地产和建筑欺诈的记录，称她处于继续特朗普调查的“最佳位置”。
“我没有被任何人吓倒，”法哈迪安·韦恩斯坦在接受采访时说。“法律面前人人平等，如果你继续占据权力职位，包括总统的权力，这不会改变。”
夸特说:“如果有证据表明有人犯下了严重的罪行，我肯定会起诉，这对总统来说是真的，对其他任何人来说也是真的。”
Trump criminal investigation looms over Manhattan DA race
NEW YORK -- Eight days afterDonald Trumpturns 75 next month, New York City voters will cast their last ballots in anelectionthat's sure to have consequences for the former president.
It’s not another White House run, but a vote in the Democratic Party primary for Manhattan’s next district attorney — the person who would likely end up handling prosecution if an ongoing investigation of Trump's business finds criminal wrongdoing.
The current district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr., is leaving office at the end of the year, meaning there's a good chance he'll pass the two-year probe to his successor.
The matter of who will take over has taken on new urgency after the announcement this week that the state attorney general’s office had joined the DA's Trump criminal investigation — a sweeping look at hush-money payments, property valuations, tax strategies, executive compensation and other dealings.
In a solidly Democratic borough, the party’s June 22 primary is highly likely to decide the winner.
The eight candidates have made clear they're not afraid of taking on the former president, but most have been cautious to stay away from overtly anti-Trump rhetoric.
“While I can’t say what I will specifically do without seeing all the facts and the evidence, if Donald Trump or any of the Trumps committed crimes in Manhattan, I will prosecute them,” said candidate Eliza Orlins, a public defender who once appeared as a contestant on “Survivor.”
“It is more vital now than ever, that the office of the district attorney be understood not to be a political office, that the district attorney not be perceived to be in bed with anyone," said another candidate, Lucy Lang, a former assistant district attorney and former director of John Jay College’s Institute for Innovation in Prosecution.
The robust field includes three former prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney's office — Lang, Liz Crotty and Diana Florence — and two former federal prosecutors, Tali Farhadian Weinstein and Alvin Bragg.
Three candidates have never been prosecutors, including Orlins, civil rights lawyer Tahanie Aboushi and state Assembly member Dan Quart.
No obvious frontrunner has emerged in the crowded field.
The Trump investigation, which the former president has decried as a “witch hunt,” carries major implications for his political future and the fate of his company.
Trump isn't the only topic of discussion in the race, amid reignited concern over street crime and the ongoing debate about criminal justice and the role of prosecutors, renewed in the wake of the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd a year ago.
“At the beginning of the race, maybe last year, a lot of folks thought that Trump would be a primary talking point, but he doesn’t really seem to be the main issue in this crop of candidates,” said Christina Greer, political science professor at Fordham University. “He’s in a long list of issues, but crime and how the DA will prosecute particular cases seem to be the more prescient issues.”
The city has seen more than 155 homicides since the start of the year, the highest number for that period since 2011. Other major crime categories, including robberies, burglaries and felonious assaults, remain largely where they were before the coronavirus pandemic.
The race could decide whether the next district attorney will continue criminal justice reforms, which in recent years have included scaling back drug prosecutions and locking up fewer defendants for long periods while they await trial.
Crotty has racked up endorsements from law enforcement unions, who see her as the candidate most focused on public safety. Other candidates have garnered support from reform-minded activists and organizations.
Vance’s office said he will continue to lead the Trump investigation through the end of his term.
He has hired former mafia prosecutor Mark Pomerantz to assist in the probe and, in February, obtained eight years of Trump’s tax returns, ending a lengthy legal fight.
Vance’s former chief assistant district attorney Daniel R. Alonso, who is not a candidate, said it’s vital that the Trump case is left “in the hands of somebody who knows what they’re doing, who’s competent, who’s experienced, who has judgment and who doesn’t think politically.”
“Frankly I don’t think the voters are focusing enough on this issue,” said Alonso.
The candidates have, at the very least, sought to telegraph that they won't go easy on the powerful.
Orlins knocked Vance for declining to bring charges against Trump's two eldest children, Ivanka and Donald Jr., in 2012 after investigating allegations they defrauded clients in a Manhattan condominium project. Vance concluded there was insufficient evidence of a crime.
“I think that we might not be in this situation that we’re in — we might never have had a President Donald J. Trump — if Cy Vance had done this earlier, if he had brought those cases and not declined to prosecute,” Orlins told The Associated Press.
Vance's decision in the earlier Trump investigation was one of several cases in his 12-year tenure where critics say he caved to powerful interests.
Vance was criticized for dropping rape charges against French financier Dominique Strauss-Kahn in 2011, declining a chance to prosecute Harvey Weinstein in 2015, five years before his eventual conviction, and striking a deal in 2016 with a well-connected gynecologist to avoid prison for allegedly sexually abusing patients.
Bragg said he would do away with what he deemed the office's “two systems of justice.”
Aboushi said she’ll “never put a badge or bank account above the law.”
Crotty said: “It comes down to what are the facts of your case, and it doesn’t matter how powerful the person is, it’s how powerful your facts are."
Farhadian Weinstein has touted her experience taking on complex white collar cases. Florence has talked similarly about her record prosecuting real estate and construction fraud, saying she's in “best position” to continue the Trump investigation.
“I’m not intimidated by anyone,” Farhadian Weinstein said in an interview. “We are all equal under the law and that doesn’t change if you go on to occupy a position of power including the power of the presidency.”
Quart said: “If there is evidence a serious crime has been committed, I would certainly prosecute, and that would be true for the president as much as it’s true for anyone else.”
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