A high-profile criminal probe into Donald Trump's finances fell apart when prosecutors working on bringing charges were unable to convince their new district attorney to do so. 

Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg stress-tested his office's case against Trump behind closed doors on January 24, with prosecutors Carey Dunn and Mark Pomerantz laying out the case against the former president. 

A grand jury had already heard the case against Trump in secret, and was set to expire in April, leading to a push to file charges.  Doing so would have made Trump the first president - sitting or past - to ever have faced criminal charges. 

But Bragg - sworn into office on January 1 - halted the case because his own team couldn't convince him that Trump had inflated the value of his assets to gain more favorable loan terms on purpose, according to The New York Times.

He was unconvinced that the probe could prove Trump had a criminal intent when doing so, with the president repeatedly denying claims of wrongdoing. 

A key issue is thought to have been Trump's dislike of email. The former president is known to prefer meeting contacts in person, or calling them up, making it far harder to identify any paper trail of alleged criminality.  

The DA - who has hit the headlines over his soft-on-crime policies - was also concerned about his team's star witness being Michael Cohen.

Cohen, Trump's former fixer, is a convicted fraudster who spent time in jail for tax evasion and campaign finance violations. Bragg feared that, regardless of how sincere and credible Cohen's evidence may have been, Team Trump could have fatally-undermined their case by highlighting the lawyer's status as an ex-con.      

The probe was kicked-off by Bragg's predecessor Cyrus Vance,  who is said to have pushed for the probe to be rapidly-advanced in the final days of his time in office.