In her reelection bid, Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George will face at least one challenger for the Democratic nomination this August: a former colleague who was once passed up for the job.
Bram Kranichfeld, a longtime Burlington resident who currently serves as the top prosecutor in neighboring Franklin County, announced on Monday that he will run to unseat George, who is seeking her third term in office.
A familiar face in Burlington politics, Kranichfeld served on the Burlington City Council for three years and, in 2011, unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for mayor. He also spent years as a deputy in the Chittenden County State’s Attorney’s Office, where his tenure ended on a sour note.
When his boss, T.J. Donovan, was elected Vermont attorney general in 2016, Kranichfeld hoped to succeed him and was one of three names sent to Gov. Phil Scott’s office as a potential replacement. Scott chose George instead. Kranichfeld has said the gubernatorial snub caused him to rethink his legal career.
He went on to join Donovan at the AG’s office before leaving in 2019 to attend divinity school and become an Episcopal priest. He returned to the courtroom in 2023, when he was appointed by Scott to succeed John Lavoie, who resigned from the Franklin County prosecutor’s office in the face of an impeachment probe.
In a campaign speech delivered on Monday not far from his home in Burlington’s Old North End, Kranichfeld positioned himself as the law-and-order counter to George, whom he sought to implicate for a rise in property crimes and open-air drug markets that he said plague the Queen City.
“As state’s attorney, I strive for a criminal justice system that is an escalator and not a revolving door,” he said.
While he did not name George directly, Kranichfeld spent much of Monday’s speech criticizing his opponent’s job performance, saying she too often places the needs of offenders over those of victims.
He pointed to a policy George implemented during her first term that forbids her attorneys from requesting cash bail in many cases. George has defended the policy by noting that bail is mostly used as a tool to lock up poor defendants for low-level crimes, and that ultimately, the decision is up to judges. If elected, Kranichfeld said he would overturn the policy on his first day in office.
Kranichfeld said he would also work to improve relationships with local law enforcement agencies.
And, to drive home his point that Burlington isn’t what it once was, Kranichfeld recounted an experience his family had last October while participating in a local ghost tour.
His daughters, who were 9 and 12 at the time, were nervous about the tour, he said, because they didn’t believe Church Street was safe at night. He assured them it would be fine. But 10 minutes into the tour, a group of young men approached the group and threatened them with a taser, according to Kranichfeld, who said the ordeal left him shaken.
Kranichfeld said he did not call the police after the incident because “even if they had shown up, and even if they had written a report,” he did not believe George’s office would prosecute the perpetrators.
Kranichfeld said the anecdote was an attempt to show that he understood all too well the concerns he’s heard from many residents in the Queen City.
Asked whether he felt it was fair to criticize George for an incident that was never investigated, and therefore never made its way to her office, Kranichfeld replied, “I’m not going to speak for Sarah George.”
“Many people I’ve talked to in Chittenden County no longer call the police because they don’t trust that there is going to be any kind of meaningful response,” he said.
Asked by Seven Days about the taser incident in a phone call on Monday, George said it was the first time she’d heard of it. Kranichfeld’s criticisms about her job performance were also surprising to hear, she said, since he had called her a few weeks ago to say he planned to run and expressed no such complaints.
“It sounds like Bram is making statements based on what he believes is occurring in our courthouse, and yet I have not seen him here in nine years,” George said.
She added that she was disappointed to hear Kranichfeld pushing a narrative based on “feelings and beliefs rather than facts and data” on day one of the campaign.
“I really hoped that this campaign would be different from the last one,” she said.
Indeed, the progressive George faced a primary challenge from the right the last time she was up for reelection in 2022.
Longtime local attorney Ted Kenney used a spike in shooting incidents and quality-of-life crimes to rail against George and her policies. Kenney rode into the primary on a wave of support from business owners, crime victims and emergency responders, and it seemed he had a real chance at victory.
But George handily beat Kennedy by roughly 20 percentage points. She said afterward that she felt her opponent’s rhetoric simply hadn’t resonated with most voters.
Whether the talk of a lawless Burlington will play better this time remains to be seen.
Making her own pitch for reelection, George told Seven Days that her office is in a much better place than it was heading into the last election. Most of the homicide and shooting cases that had been piling up that summer have been resolved, she said, and relationships with local law enforcement agencies are improving.
The governor’s recent “accountability court” pilot program, meanwhile, has helped push caseloads for her attorneys to the lowest they’ve been in years. That allows them to spend more time on each case, while also addressing emerging issues, such as the threats posed by a “federal administration that is constantly stomping on our constitutional rights,” she said.
Last month, George declined to prosecute 13 people cited for criminal trespass during a sit-in protest against federal immigration authorities at a Williston office park. She has also vowed a thorough review of all body camera footage from the recent immigration raid in South Burlington, which she said will help her decide whether to bring charges against anyone involved in the standoff.
And she recently joined a small coalition of progressive prosecutors from around the country that has formed to assist in prosecuting federal law enforcement officers who violate state laws. The organization is called the Project for the Fight Against Federal Overreach, or F.A.F.O. — a reference to the slang term, “Fuck Around and Find Out.”
Chittenden County residents need a prosecutor who isn’t afraid to stand up to the Trump administration, she said.
“More change and turmoil in this office would be detrimental to that work,” she said.
Lucy Tompkins contributed reporting.
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