Post by the Scribe on Jun 20, 2020 6:09:28 GMT
nytimes.com
The New York Times
BREAKING NEWS
The U.S. attorney in Manhattan, whom the attorney general just tried to fire, is refusing to leave. The clash sets up a crisis in the Justice Dept.
Friday, June 19, 2020 11:42 PM EST
Attorney General William P. Barr on Friday night abruptly tried to oust the United States attorney in Manhattan, Geoffrey S. Berman, the powerful federal prosecutor whose office sent President Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to prison and who has been investigating Mr. Trump’s current personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani.
But Mr. Berman said in a statement that he was refusing to leave his position.
“I have not resigned, and have no intention of resigning, my position,” Mr. Berman said, adding that he learned that he was “stepping down” in a press release from the Justice Department.
DOJ tries to oust US attorney investigating Trump allies
www.yahoo.com/news/us-attorney-oversaw-cases-trump-013924774.html
MICHAEL BALSAMO and COLLEEN LONG
Associated PressJune 19, 2020, 6:39 PM MST
Manhattan Federal Prosecutor
FILE - In this Oct. 26, 2018, file photo, Geoffrey Berman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, speaks during a news conference at the Department of Justice in Washington. Berman, who oversaw key prosecutions of allies of President Donald Trump and an investigation into Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, is resigning. Attorney General William Barr said Friday, June 19, 2020, that Trump intends to nominate Jay Clayton, the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, to the post. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department moved abruptly Friday night to oust Geoffrey S. Berman, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan overseeing key prosecutions of President Donald Trump’s allies and an investigation of his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. But Berman said he was refusing to leave his post and his ongoing investigations would continue.
“I have not resigned, and have no intention of resigning, my position,” Berman said. His statement came hours after Attorney General William Barr said Berman was stepping down from his position.
The standoff set off an extraordinary clash between the Justice Department and one of the nation’s top districts, which has tried major mob and terror cases over the years. It is also likely to deepen tensions between the Justice Department and congressional Democrats who have pointedly accused Barr of politicizing the agency and acting more like Trump’s personal lawyer than the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.
The move to oust Berman also comes days after allegations surfaced from former Trump national security adviser John Bolton that the president sought to interfere in an Southern District of New York investigation into the state-owned Turkish bank in an effort to cut deals with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Barr offered no explanation for why he was pushing out Berman in the statement he issued late Friday. The White House quickly announced that Trump was nominating the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission to the job, a lawyer with virtually no experience as a federal prosecutor.
Hours later, Berman issued his own statement saying he had learned that he was being pushed out through a press release. He vowed to stay on the job until a Trump nominee is confirmed by the Senate, challenging Barr's power to remove him from office because he was appointed to the job by federal judges, not by the president. Under federal law, a U.S. attorney who is appointed by district court judges can serve “until the vacancy is filled.”
A senior Justice Department official said the department was pressing forward with its plans and will have Craig Carpenito, the U.S. attorney in New Jersey, take over the office temporarily, starting on July 3. The official wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about the issue and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.
Democrats have repeatedly accused Trump's Justice Department of political interference, and those concerns have also been pervasive among some rank and file officials in the agency. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said his committee was inviting Berman to testify next week.
Federal prosecutors in New York have overseen numerous prosecutions and investigations with ties to Trump in recent years. That includes an ongoing investigation into Giuliani’s business dealings, including whether he failed to register as a foreign agent, according to people familiar with the probe. The people were not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The office has also prosecuted a number of Trump associates, including Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, who served a prison sentence for lying to Congress and campaign finance crimes.
Berman has also overseen the prosecution of two Florida businessmen, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who were associates of Giuliani and tied to the Ukraine impeachment investigation. The men were charged in October with federal campaign finance violations, including hiding the origin of a $325,000 donation to a group supporting Trump’s reelection.
Attention refocused on the Southern District this week after news organizations, including The Associated Press, obtained copies of Bolton's tell-all book. Bolton alleges in the book that Trump sought to cut a deal to stop federal prosecutors in New York from investigating whether Halkbank violated U.S. sanctions against Iran in order to free an American pastor imprisoned in Turkey.
Six weeks after the pastor’s release, Bolton writes that on a call with the Turkish president,“Trump then told Erdoğan 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.”
The White House is seeking to block the public release of Bolton’s book, saying it is being published without formal authorization that the manuscript was free of classified information.
The episode Bolton describes occurred months after Berman assumed the role of U.S. attorney.
A Republican who contributed to the president’s election campaign, Berman worked for the same law firm as Giuliani and was put in his job by the Trump administration. But as U.S. attorney, he won over some skeptics after he went after Trump allies, and had a direct hand in other investigations that have angered the president.
Berman was appointed by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in January 2018, after Preet Bharara, then US attorney in New York, was fired. Bharara had refused to resign along with dozens of other federal prosecutors appointed by President Barack Obama.
Months later, FBI agents raided Cohen’s offices, an act the president decried as a politically motivated witch hunt. Berman recused himself from Cohen's prosecution though it was never explained why.
The following April, in the absence of a formal nomination by Trump, the judges in Manhattan federal court voted to appoint Berman to the position permanently. The White House never said why Trump didn't formally nominate Berman.
Yet the links between the White House and some of Berman's investigations were clear. His office subpoenaed Trump’s inaugural committee for a wide range of documents as part of an investigation into various potential crimes, including possible illegal contributions from foreigners to inaugural events.
And weeks before the 2018 midterm election, Berman announced insider trading charges against an ardent Trump supporter, Republican Rep. Chris Collins. Collins, who represented western New York, has since resigned.
Under Berman’s tenure, his office also brought charges against Michael Avenatti, the combative lawyer who gained fame by representing porn actress Stormy Daniels in lawsuits involving Trump. Avenatti was convicted in February of trying to extort Nike after prosecutors said he threatened to use his media access to hurt Nike’s reputation and stock price unless the sportswear giant paid him up to $25 million.
The White House said in a statement Friday that Trump is nominating SEC Chairman Jay Clayton to the post. Before taking the reins at the SEC, Clayton was a well-connected Wall Street lawyer who represented and advised a number of major companies, including Goldman Sachs, Barclays, Deutsche Bank and UBS.
___
Associated Press writers Zeke Miller and Marcy Gordon in Washington and Tom Hays and Larry Neumeister in New York contributed to this report.
COMMENTS
Republican Southern Grandma3 hours ago
"We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.” - Abe Lincoln. William Barr is far more dangerous than Trump to our constitution and democracy. Barr is literally wearing a police uniform as he commits his crimes and obstructs justice, and he has a long history of doing this going way back.
Back in 1992, the last time Bill Barr was U.S. attorney general, New York Times writer William Safire referred to him as “Coverup-General Barr” because of his role in burying evidence of then-President George H.W. Bush’s involvement in “Iraqgate” and “Iran-Contra.” Remember, John Mitchell, Nixon’s AG, ended up going to jail for everything that Bagdad Barr is doing now - conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and sooner or later perjury.
In 1989, President George H. W. Bush appointed Barr to the U.S. Department of Justice as Assistant Attorney General. He wrote a complete advisory opinion justifying the U.S. invasion of Panama and arrest of Manuel Noriega for the DOJ. Barr then declined a congressional request for the full opinion, but instead provided a document that "summarizes the principal conclusions." Congress subpoenaed the opinion, and its public release after Barr's departure from the Justice Department showed he had omitted significant findings in the opinion from his summary document. Barr’s summary to Congress was the opposite of his own complete advisory opinion, which is exactly what he did with the Muller Report.
Anonymous1 hour ago
The timing is suspect for another reason. Currently there is a supreme court judgment due by the end of June over a New York Criminal investigation into the President and his taxes. If the White House looses the case then New York and others will be able to continue the investigation. I'm guessing the WH wants a "Friendly" investigator to take over in case they loose the SCOTUS case.
Republican Southern Grandma3 hours ago
Welcome to “The Russian Banana Republic of Trumpanistan” led by Reality TV Show Host “Vladimir Pandemic President Trump”, William Bagdad Barr, Moscow Mitch (a.k.a RichMitch), Leningrad Lindsey Graham, Adderall Jim Jordan, Hurricane Hand-Grenade Rudy, Deep State Dmitry Devin Nunes, Kremlin McCarthy, Ted Cruz-chev (a.k.a. Toronto Ted), Mikhail Mark Meadows, Concerned Comrade Susan Collins, Pompous Mike Pompeo, DUI Mugshot Matt Gaetz, Trey "Howdy" Gowdy, Disgruntled Chaplain Dough Collins, Mike “the elf on the shelf” Pence, and Wrongway Kellyanne Conway. #MAGA – “Make Alcatraz Great Again”.
Geoffrey S. Berman is being fired for investigations into Trump. On November 8, 2019, Trump, Ivanka, Don Jr, and Eric all confessed to basically stealing money from the "Trump Charity Foundation,” to benefit their family interests. Trump and his family were fined $2 million dollars and Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka were ordered to attend mandatory training on the duties of charity officials. According to the lawsuit, the Trumps allowed the foundation to be used ‘as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump’s business and political interests.'
Trump admitted to using the charity to pay $10,000 for a 6-foot portrait of himself; $11,525 spent on sports memorabilia and champagne at a charity gala; $100,000 in foundation money was used to settle legal claims over an 80-foot flagpole he had built at his Mar-a-Lago resort, instead of paying the expense out of his own pocket; $158,000 to resolve a lawsuit over a prize for a hole-in-one contest at a Trump-owned golf course; and $5,000 for ads promoting Trump’s hotels in the programs for charitable events. Trump admitted that all these transactions were improper and criminal.
US union thug2 hours ago
The White House quickly announced that Trump was nominating the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission to the job, a lawyer with virtually no experience as a federal prosecutor.
Now you know what it means when they say letting the Fox in the henhouse
The Dark Elf3 hours ago
Berman is investigating Trumps google-eyed mumbling buddy Rudy Giuliani and indicted the former New York mayor's associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman. But it really looks like John Bolton's book is absolutely true:
According to Bolton, after Erdogan handed Trump a memo saying that a Turkish firm under investigation by SDNY was innocent, Trump 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."
Trump is a criminal. No doubt about it.
MK3 hours ago
He did NOT resign. Statement just read on MSNBC says he was fired and refuses to leave his post until a successor is confirmed. Which of the Trump or Giuliana cases were they ready to serve that another Trump Friday night massacre had to take place?
