Barr Abruptly Seeks to Fire U.S. Attorney Who Investigated Trump Associates
By: Benjamin Weiser, William K. Rashbaum, Nicole Hong, Maggie Haberman and Katie Benner
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Barr Abruptly Seeks to Fire U.S. Attorney Who Investigated Trump Associates
Attorney General William P. Barr on Friday night abruptly tried to fire the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, Geoffrey S. Berman, who has investigated several of President Trump's closest associates, but Mr. Berman said he would not leave.
© Jefferson Siegel for The New York Times The Justice Department is attempting to replace Geoffrey S. Berman, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan.
The clash focused new attention on the efforts by Mr. Trump and his closest aides to rid the administration of officials whom the president views as insufficiently loyal. It also touched off a crisis within the Justice Department over one of its most prestigious jobs, at a time when the agency has already been roiled by questions over whether Mr. Barr has undercut its tradition of independence from political interference.
Mr. Berman, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, and his team have been at the forefront of corruption inquiries in Mr. Trump's inner circle. They successfully prosecuted the president's former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, who went to prison, and have been investigating Mr. Trump's current personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani.
"I have not resigned, and have no intention of resigning, my position," Mr. Berman said in a statement, adding that he had learned that he was "stepping down" from a Justice Department news release.
Mr. Barr's announcement that Mr. Trump was seeking to replace Mr. Berman was made with no notice. Mr. Barr said the president intended to nominate as Mr. Berman's successor Jay Clayton, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who has never served as a prosecutor.
Mr. Barr asked Mr. Berman to resign, but he refused, so Mr. Barr moved to fire him, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Trump had been discussing removing Mr. Berman for some time with a small group of advisers, the person said. Mr. Trump has been upset with Mr. Berman ever since the Manhattan prosecutor's office pursued a case against Mr. Cohen.
Mr. Trump's purge of officials has intensified in the months since the Republican-led Senate acquitted him in the impeachment trial. He has fired or forced out inspectors general with independent oversight over executive branch agencies and other key figures from the trial.
Several dismissals have come late on Friday nights, a time that many White Houses have used to disclose news that they would prefer receive little attention.
The highly public tussle between Mr. Barr and Mr. Berman that unfolded late on Friday was another example of the tumult that has engulfed the Justice Department in recent months.
The attorney general's interventions in high-profile cases involving the onetime Trump advisers Roger J. Stone Jr. and Michael T. Flynn have prompted accusations from current and former law enforcement officials that Mr. Barr has politicized the department.
Mr. Berman's office has taken an aggressive approach in a number of cases that have vexed the Trump administration, from the prosecution and guilty plea obtained from Mr. Cohen to a broader investigation, growing out of that inquiry, which focused on Mr. Trump's private company and others close to him.
Over the last year, Mr. Berman's office brought indictments against two close associates of the president's current lawyer, Mr. Giuliani, and began an investigation into Mr. Giuliani himself, focusing on whether his efforts to dig up dirt in Ukraine on the president's political rivals violated laws on lobbying for foreign entities.
Mr. Berman's office also conducted an investigation into Mr. Trump's inaugural committee, subpoenaing financial and other records as part of a broad inquiry into possible illegal contributions from foreigners.
A lawyer for Mr. Giuliani, Robert J. Costello, said he had received no advance notice of Mr. Barr's effort to oust Mr. Berman. Mr. Costello said Mr. Giuliani had no role in the matter.
"We certainly don't know anything about it," Mr. Costello said. "This comes as a surprise to us."
Mr. Barr also announced that on his recommendation, Mr. Trump had appointed Craig Carpenito, the current U.S. attorney for New Jersey, to serve as acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan while the Senate considers Mr. Clayton's nomination. Mr. Barr said Mr. Carpenito's appointment would be effective July 3.
Mr. Barr's move to dismiss Mr. Berman came just days after Mr. Trump's former national security adviser, John Bolton, alleged in a new book that Mr. Trump sought to interfere in an investigation by Mr. Berman's office into a Turkish bank, in a bid to cut deals with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The United States attorney's office in Manhattan is perhaps the most famous federal prosecutor's post in the country. The office, through Democratic and Republican administrations, has long prized a tradition of independence from the Justice Department and Washington. It has even been nicknamed the "Sovereign District of New York."
Mr. Berman worked there in the 1990s as a prosecutor, but he took over the office under unusual circumstances.
A Republican who contributed to the president's campaign and worked at the same law firm as Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Berman was never formally nominated for the position by Mr. Trump or confirmed by the Senate, as is normal protocol for United States attorneys.
In 2018, the attorney general at the time, Jeff Sessions, appointed Mr. Berman as interim United States attorney in Manhattan.
But Mr. Trump never formally sent Mr. Berman's nomination to the Senate. After 120 days, his formal appointment to the post was made by the judges of the United States District Court.
Mr. Berman took note of the nature of his appointment to the position in explaining why he was refusing to step down.
"I was appointed by the judges of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York," Mr. Berman said in his statement. "I will step down when a presidentially appointed nominee is confirmed by the Senate. Until then, our investigations will move forward without delay or interruption."
U.S. attorneys are typically replaced by their first assistants, but Mr. Trump's choice to replace Mr. Berman is an outsider who has never worked in that office.
Mr. Clayton is not a litigator or a former prosecutor, which often are prerequisites to being named a United States attorney, especially in a jurisdiction as prominent as the Southern District.
Before being named chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission by Mr. Trump, Mr. Clayton had been a longtime corporate lawyer at the firm Sullivan & Cromwell, where he did work for banks, hedge funds and big corporations such as Goldman Sachs, Barclays and Alibaba.
It is highly unusual to name an outsider to a prosecutor's post like the one in Manhattan, but it is not the first time this has happened under Mr. Trump. When Jessie K. Liu left the United States attorney's office in Washington, she was replaced by an ally of Mr. Barr, Timothy Shea, rather than her first assistant.
Mr. Barr met with Mr. Berman on Friday in New York, according to a person familiar with the matter. It was not clear what they discussed.
Mr. Barr was visiting New York to meet with senior New York Police Department officials and to talk about "policing issues that have been at the forefront of national conversation and debate," according to a Justice Department news release.
On Thursday, Mr. Berman sent a message to the office about safety protocols for returning to work, sounding upbeat and giving no indication that he was about to leave, according to a person familiar with the message.
Mr. Barr's attempt to remove Mr. Berman came two days after excerpts released from Mr. Bolton's upcoming book described what Mr. Bolton said was Mr. Trump's willingness to intervene in criminal investigations, including one in Mr. Berman's office.
Mr. Bolton wrote in the book that Mr. Trump in 2018 had promised the Turkish president, Mr. Erdogan, that he would interfere in an ongoing investigation against a Turkish company accused of violating Iranian sanctions.
"Trump then told Erdogan he would take care of things, explaining that the Southern District prosecutors were not his people, but were Obama people, a problem that would be fixed when they were replaced by his people," Mr. Bolton wrote, according to an excerpt published this week in The Washington Post.
At the time, Mr. Berman was the U.S. attorney overseeing the case. The company, Halkbank, a state-owned bank in Turkey, was indicted in the Southern District last year.
Mr. Berman was also known for his office's decision last year to bring sex-trafficking charges against Jeffrey Epstein, who had avoided a similar prosecution in Florida in 2008.
After Mr. Epstein committed suicide last August, Mr. Berman announced that the inquiry into Mr. Epstein's sex trafficking conspiracy would continue and that his office was committed to standing up for the "brave young women" whom Mr. Epstein had abused.
The office has been investigating several of Mr. Epstein's alleged co-conspirators, and it has been locked in a public dispute with Prince Andrew of Britain about what Mr. Berman has depicted as the prince's refusal to assist the investigation.
Matthew Goldstein and Ben Protess contributed reporting.
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Unbelievable...
Don't tell me, this is draining the swamp...
Cue the donald supporters yelling that he can do whatever he wants...
Trump doesn't want to drain the swamp. He wants to drain the treasury.
How does he want to drain the Treasury?
By what means?
Wait until you see the accounting for the Payroll Protection Program. That is, if any actual accounting exists.
US Debt was at $19.95 trillion January of 2017 when the supposedly "fiscal" conservatives took over.
The current US debt is now $25.68 trillion, and increase of $5.7 trillion in just over 3 years.
Where did a lot of that go? Well we know the Trump tax cuts cost us over $2 trillion and didn't improve the GDP at all, but hey! Corporations got to buy back a lot of their stock and make a lot of money and the wealthy got a huge break and the inheritance tax exemption went from $5.5 million to $11.2 million so millionaire and billionaire families will be able to retain more of their fortunes. Sure, sticking the rest of us with the bill sucks, but isn't it worth it just to get to fondle billionaire balls like Trump and his wannabe Sopranos mob family with your tax money? /s
What's really unbelievable is that these kind of stupid investigations are still going on.
Trump was cleared of any wrong doing by the impeachment process working the way it's supposed to.
So nothing to say about a partisan firing and putting someone in the position with no experience?
You were expecting...?
This guy will be as qualified as Bolton in a few months.
Barr wants to fire him for doing his job?
SMH.
He is allowed to do his job, but not anything involving Trump's butt buddies.
And put someone in with zero experience...
Well, I guess if my pals and I were under investigation, and I could handpick my prosecutor (by proxy), I'd want somebody inexperienced, too.
According to my news, he has been fired. Cue the Trump Toadie.
Yep, though donald and Barr can't get their stories straight.
Trump doesn't need to rack up any more counts of obstruction.
No, the more he racks up the better. Courts love multiple counts.
He is well known for that.
You have got to admit this is pretty damn swampy...
I will be glad when Barr is thrown out on his ass and heads to prison. Maybe him and Trump can share a cell and take turns dropping the soap in the shower.
I will be glad when Barr is thrown out on his ass and heads to prison
For doing what? What laws has he broken?
Democrats definitely don't. So being on the wrong side of them is a good thing.
Real criminals. The Democrats look at real criminals in the mirror every morning; but still can't seem to spot them. Instead they make shit up and convictions.
From the article.
He was never given the damn job. You do understand that right? He was the interim attorney. Nothing more. Seems that his services are no longer required. Or, is it that Democrat presidents only have the power to remove Federal attorneys now?
You missed out on the Obama and Clinton administrations didn't you, those D blinders must be very large. Hell, you must have been asleep through the Reagan and Bush Jr administrations as well.
He was appointed under the following law:
28 U.S. Code § 546.Vacancies
(a)
Except as provided in subsection (b), the Attorney General may appoint a United States attorney for the district in which the office of United States attorney is vacant.
(b)
The Attorney General shall not appoint as United States attorney a person to whose appointment by the President to that office the Senate refused to give advice and consent.
(c) A person appointed as United States attorney under this section may serve until the earlier of—
(1)
the qualification of a United States attorney for such district appointed by the President under section 541 of this title ; or
(2)
the expiration of 120 days after appointment by the Attorney General under this section.
(d)
If an appointment expires under subsection (c)(2), the district court for such district may appoint a United States attorney to serve until the vacancy is filled. The order of appointment by the court shall be filed with the clerk of the court.
Read specifically paragraph (d).
Ah, is that why so many people around Trump and his campaign were indicted, tried and convicted or plead guilty yet not a single Obama administration official has ever even been charged with a crime? Funny how much fiction Republicans are trying to push as fact, too bad they can't seem to tell the difference.
Now try saying something relevant. Come on, you can do it if you really try.
Seriously? You're going with the General who had an extramarital affair which had nothing to do with Obama or his justice department who also happen to be the ones who investigated and filed charges against Petraeus back in 2014/2015. The same justice department that so many conservative Republicans claim was unfair or unjust somehow, why aren't you defending Petraeus claiming he must have been railroad-ed like Flynn?
So anyone that Republicans or the current administration charged with a crime or plead guilty? And of course the crime should be relevant to their work, not lying about an affair considering the inept adulterous President you constantly defend lied over and over about his affairs and paid nearly half a million to keep porn stars silent about his illicit affairs with them.
Obama's administration "charged him" in his first term, trying to use Petraeus as a "gotcha" is just sad. Besides, Petraeus wasn't a Democrat. I was responding to the claim that "Democrats look at real criminals in the mirror every morning but still can't seem to spot them. Instead they make shit up and convictions". So in response you ignorantly roll in and point out the one Obama administration official who was charged BY the Obama administration WHO WAS A REPUBLICAN.
said none of his admin had been charged, you were wrong! Period! Why doesn’t matter, it’s a lie.
It's funny to watch though.
So Flynn was never the National Security Advisor and didn't plead guilty twice? And you want to ignore the other half a dozen Trump campaign who were also tried and convicted? Please, your attempts at deflection are just sad.