Barr (or Trump) fires Atty who was leading investigations into Trump and his ass.

[GMDino]

Seem all perfectly legit.

To sump up before the links:

Barr issues a statement at 9pm on Friday saying the attorney is stepping down.

The attorney issues a statement saying he is not and only learned of it through Barr's statement...then goes to work on Saturday.

On Saturday Barr announces that Trump fired the attorney claiming that his public statement was "spectacle"...this after they allegedly offered him promotions a week or so earlier.

Before his rally on Saturday Trump says he had nothing to do with it.

The attorney was not Senate approved so there is some question about if Trump can even fire him.

Between two "stepping down" and the firing Barr changed his mind on who would be the temporary replacement.  First they wanted the head of the FEC who has no experience but now it will be an assistant.

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/20/881148365/geoffrey-berman-u-s-attorney-who-prosecuted-trump-allies-says-he-wont-quit

Quote:President Trump Fires Top U.S. Prosecutor Who Investigated His Allies, Barr Says

U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman speaks to reporters last year about two Florida men associated with President Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani and the Ukraine investigation.
Seth Wenig/AP

Updated at 7:17 p.m. ET
President Trump has removed Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, from office, ending the tenure of a top Justice Department official whose office has overseen the prosecutions of several of the president's associates.

Attorney General William Barr announced the termination Saturday, less than a day after initially suggesting that Berman was resigning — only to be contradicted by Berman himself.

"Unfortunately, with your statement of last night, you have chosen public spectacle over public service," Barr said in a letter to Berman Saturday. "Because you have declared that you have no intention of resigning, I have asked the President to remove you as of today, and he has done so."

By Saturday evening, Berman confirmed that he would indeed step down, effective immediately, and allow for Deputy U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss to become acting U.S. attorney.

Despite Barr invoking his name, President Trump attempted to distance himself from the firing.

"Attorney General Barr is working on that. That's his department, not my department," Trump told reporters as he was leaving the White House for a campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla. "But we have a very capable attorney general. So that's really up to him. I'm not involved."


Berman's eventual agreement to leave his post ended a nearly day-long showdown between Barr and the prosecutor. Berman's removal also prompted action from the head of the House Judiciary Committee.

On Saturday, chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., announced his intention to investigate Berman's removal as well as a hearing for Wednesday where two whistleblowers will testify against Barr.

"The whole thing smacks of corruption and incompetence, which is what we have come to expect from this President and his Attorney General," Nadler said in a statement.

The standoff began late Friday night, when the attorney general released a statement saying that Berman was "stepping down." In the announcement, he said that the president would be nominating Jay Clayton, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, to succeed Berman.

Just a short time later, Berman fired off his own announcement, denying Barr's statement.

"I learned in a press release from the Attorney General tonight that I was 'stepping down' as United States Attorney," said Berman, who spearheaded the prosecution of Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen and brought the grand jury indictment against associates of the president's current personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.

"I have not resigned, and have no intention of resigning, my position, to which I was appointed by the Judges of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York," he said. "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."

Quote:
[/url]US Attorney SDNY

@SDNYnews








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[url=https://twitter.com/SDNYnews/status/1274178732476059650]



Under Berman's watch, Cohen ultimately pleaded guilty to financial crimes, lying to Congress and campaign finance crimes. Under oath, Cohen implicated Trump in payments made to two women ahead of the 2016 elections to keep them quiet about affairs they said they had with Trump.


Berman also issued a grand jury indictment against Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two Giuliani associates. The two have pleaded not guilty to setting up a shell company to hide the foreign sourcing of a $325,000 donation to a superPAC committed to Trump's reelection. The two also allegedly helped Giuliani in efforts to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter in Ukraine.

And Berman's office has investigated the business dealings of Giuliani himself, but no charges have been brought against him.

"This is clearly a political takeover of the historically independent Southern District of New York," Elie Honig, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the district, said in an interview with NPR's Weekend Edition before Berman's formal firing.

"When you look at the timing of this — the fact that it was announced late on a Friday night, the fact that the attorney general immediately was caught in a misleading statement when he said the U.S. attorney is stepping down ... and you look at all the important pending cases in the SDNY right now, the only logical conclusion to me is that this is a political move."

Honig said that if the Trump administration wishes to proceed without Senate confirmation for Berman's replacement, it's likely to end up in the courts.

"The question is, can the president just fire or move aside the U.S. attorney barring [Senate approval]?" he said. "In other words, can the attorney general and the president just say 'You're out, somebody else'?"

During Berman's tenure, the SDNY has also taken on other high-profile cases, including the prosecution of multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein on federal sex trafficking charges. Berman later charged two corrections officers who were supposed to guard Epstein with dereliction of their duties after Epstein's apparent suicide in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center.

Berman praised his acting successor in his statement Saturday evening: "It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve as this District's U.S. Attorney and a custodian of its proud legacy, but I could leave the District in no better hands than Audrey's."

Cover up.  Plain and simple.  Barr says Trump did it.  Trump says he had nothing to do with it.

Investigations, real ones, into what Trump did and didn't do legally will go on for decades.

[fredtoast]

Berman agreed to step down when Barr agreed to "comply with the law" and let Berman's assistant take over instead of Clayton.

[Dill]

(06-21-2020, 10:24 AM)GMDino Wrote: Barr issues a statement at 9pm on Friday saying the attorney is stepping down.

The attorney issues a statement saying he is not and only learned of it through Barr's statement...then goes to work on Saturday.

On Saturday Barr announces that Trump fired the attorney claiming that his public statement was "spectacle"...this after they allegedly offered him promotions a week or so earlier.

Before his rally on Saturday Trump says he had nothing to do with it.

The attorney was not Senate approved so there is some question about if Trump can even fire him.

Between two "stepping down" and the firing Barr changed his mind on who would be the temporary replacement.  First they wanted the head of the FEC who has no experience but now it will be an assistant.

The promotions were to get rid of him by moving him up and away from the investigation.

When that didn't work, came the alleged "stepping down," and when that didn't work the "firing" announcement followed.

So the replacement will be Berman's own assistant.

What if he lacks Berman's integrity?

[fredtoast]

Oh shit.  This is about to get REAL INTERESTING

https://www.axios.com/geoffrey-berman-lindsey-graham-new-york-attorney-a388fc90-69a9-42f5-933d-3f0fe558f9d2.html

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Saturday that he plans to honor the committee's "blue-slip" rule for the Trump administration's move to nominate Jay Clayton as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Why it matters: Graham holding to this policy — in a clash over one of the highest profile districts in the country — would mean that Clayton's nomination would not be able to advance without approval from home-state Democratic senators, per the Washington Post.



So what do the home-state Democratic Senators from New York have to say about Clayton (Trumps propsed replacement)?


Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) issued a statement calling for Clayton to withdraw from his nomination: “Forty seven years ago, Elliott Richardson had the courage to say no to a gross abuse of presidential power. Jay Clayton has a similar choice today: He can allow himself to be used in the brazen Trump-Barr scheme to interfere in investigations by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, or he can stand up to this corruption, withdraw his name from consideration, and save his own reputation from overnight ruin."



Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), the other New York senator who would have sway over Clayton's nomination, said in a statement: “I will not be complicit in helping President Trump and Attorney General Barr fire a U.S. attorney who is reportedly investigating corruption in this administration. Jay Clayton should withdraw his name from consideration immediately and remove himself from this sham.”

[Mike M (the other one)]

Did you expect the Dems to say anything positive?

[hollodero]

(06-22-2020, 05:04 AM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Did you expect the Dems to say anything positive?

Yeah, it's just an AG doing all he can to remove an US attorney who is geting close to the president... and the Dems are such negative Nancys about that, never have something nice to say about those things. Undue intervention, abuse of power, nag nag nag. Can't two fellas just collude a little in peace?

[Belsnickel]

(06-22-2020, 05:04 AM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Did you expect the Dems to say anything positive?

Hey, we wouldn't expect the sycophant Graham to say what he did, so ya never know. But, it isn't surprising to me that some folks try to ignore the brazen corruption from the current administration.

[Arturo Bandini]

The monsters of the swamp.

[GMDino]

(06-21-2020, 04:58 PM)Dill Wrote: The promotions were to get rid of him by moving him up and away from the investigation.

When that didn't work, came the alleged "stepping down," and when that didn't work the "firing" announcement followed.

So the replacement will be Berman's own assistant.

What if he lacks Berman's integrity?

She.  And Berman's statement implies that she will continue in the same vein as he did.  I beleive that is why he resisted "stepping down" the first time.  The replacement was handpicked with no experience.

[Dill]

(06-22-2020, 05:04 AM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Did you expect the Dems to say anything positive?

I hear you.

This is the kind of thing we have come to expect from Democrats whenever Trump uses his AG to block investigations into his own wrongdoing.

And it's getting tiresome.

Let Trump be Trump.

And if people don't like it, they can elect someone else in 4 years.

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

(06-22-2020, 10:43 AM)Dill Wrote: I hear you.

This is the kind of thing we have come to expect from Democrats whenever Trump uses his AG to block investigations into his own wrongdoing.

And it's getting tiresome.

Let Trump be Trump.

And if people don't like it, they can elect someone else in 4 years.

It’s like obstruction of justice is a way of life.

[GMDino]

https://www.lawfareblog.com/five-questions-about-geoffrey-bermans-removal

Quote:Five Questions about Geoffrey Berman’s Removal


The president’s removal of Geoffrey S. Berman as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York this week requires congressional investigation. Congress should ask questions quickly. It should ask them aggressively.
Some of these questions, at least, are ones a congressional committee might address by having Berman—if he is willing—promptly up to Capitol Hill to discuss his dismissal, either privately or in a public hearing. Some are questions on which it will have to fight the attorney general and the president for answers. 

Here are five key questions to which it should demand answers:

First, why was Berman removed?

The most innocent explanation for the move against Berman is that the president recently golfed with the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Jay Clayton, who has expressed interest in Berman’s position. So the administration moved to remove Berman to make room for someone who is tight with the president. The president has reportedly had a bee in his bonnet about Berman for a while now, so it’s possible Attorney General Bill Barr sought to kill two birds with one stone—getting a Trump-irritant out of a sensitive role and replacing him with someone with whom the president is friendly.

But given the president’s history of abuse of law enforcement, it would be foolish to ignore more menacing possibilities. It may be, for example, that Berman’s removal was a retaliatory gesture similar in character to the recent removals of inspectors general, the firing of Jeff Sessions and the forced exit of all people named Vindman from the National Security Council staff. 

The president is vindictive, particularly toward law enforcement officials, and Berman’s office has done a number of things that have upset Trump. It prosecuted Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer—labeling the president “Individual 1” in the process—for, among other things, a scheme in which Cohen coordinated the payment of hush money to women who claimed to have had sex with Trump. (Berman was recused from that matter.) It also prosecuted Halkbank, a Turkish government-owned bank Berman’s office indicted for violating sanctions against Iran. Former National Security Advisor John Bolton recently claimed in his book that Trump personally promised Turkish President Erdogan that he would intervene in the case. 

Writes Bolton, “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 with his people.” (Berman is, in fact, not an Obama person, but never mind that.) 

And, of course, the southern district also has been engaged in the current investigation of another presidential lawyer, Rudy Giuliani—a matter that has been quiet recently, but about which there is no indication that the office has wrapped up its work. So there’s enough water under the bridge that it’s possible Berman’s removal was simply revenge.

This leads to the most troubling possibility and the second key question: Why was Berman removed now? 

Specifically, was the removal an effort to interfere with any specific investigation? This is not an idle question. Trump, after all, fired FBI Director Jim Comey because of his ongoing handling of the Russia investigation. 
Bolton’s book accuses the president of engaging in “obstruction of justice as a way of life.” And the Mueller report is replete with examples of Trump’s trying to interfere with the Russia probe in a number of different fashions. It’s certainly the sort of thing he would do.

No evidence has yet emerged that there is any pending investigation with which Trump or Barr may have been specifically seeking to interfere. But Berman has intimated that this may be the case. In his June 19 statement denying that he had resigned, Berman concluded by writing, “I cherish every day that I work with the men and women of this Office to pursue justice without fear or favor—and intend to ensure that this Office’s important cases continue unimpeded” (emphasis added). This could be merely prosecutorial boilerplate. It also could be a flashing red light. Congress should clarify quickly that it is the former, not the latter.

A third key—and related—question: Did Berman feel political pressure with respect to any investigation? 

When Preet Bharara was removed as the head of the southern district office at the beginning of the Trump administration, he refused to resign in response to a request from the attorney general—a decision that seemed odd to me at the time. I did not understand it until Bharara told the back story some time later—a back story that included efforts by the president to court him and call him directly on the telephone. In that context, and in the context of Comey’s similar stories, Bharara’s actions made a great deal of sense: fearing political pressure with respect to the performance of his job, he refused contact with the president and refused to step down when asked.


Berman should be given the opportunity to address the question of whether he similarly felt politically pressured in his job, either generally or with respect to any particular case. This may be a difficult subject for him to discuss, as investigative confidentialities may legitimately require his silence. But there is some altitude at which he can surely address the matter. Was he at any time subject to inappropriate pressures from the executive branch hierarchy in his role as U.S. attorney, a member of Congress might ask? And critically, does he have any reason to believe that any such pressure, if it occurred, is related to his dismissal?

A fourth important question: who precisely was responsible for Berman’s dismissal? 

Berman himself might not know the answer to this one. But it’s important that Congress look into it. Barr appears to have been the main actor, meeting with Berman and requesting that he step down and take the helm of the Justice Department’s Civil Division or the SEC. Barr reported in his letter to Berman on June 20 that “I have asked the President to remove you as of today, and he has done so.” 

On the other hand, the entire episode, as mentioned above, followed a recent golf outing at Bedminster between the president and Clayton. And, as noted above, the president is not fond of Berman. So was this a situation in which Barr was acting at Trump’s behest or a situation in which Trump was acting at Barr’s behest?

The question is important because it goes to whether this another episode of Trump’s abuse of law enforcement, or whether it reflects some effort on the part of Barr himself to impose control over the southern district.

The final key question is the extent to which and the reason that Barr has been less than truthful about the events in question.


It is rather rare for the attorney general to issue a public statement about a U.S. attorney that is immediately contradicted on the Justice Department’s own web site by that very U.S. attorney. But that is what happened on the evening of June 19, when Barr announced in a press release that Berman “is stepping down after two-and-a-half years of service as United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.” Berman almost immediately issued a press release declaring that “I learned in a press release from the Attorney General tonight that I was ‘stepping down’ as United States Attorney. I have not resigned, and have no intention of resigning, my position.” Barr’s letter the next day actually did not dispute Berman’s account of the matter:

Quote:When the Department of Justice advised the public of the President's intent to nominate your successor, I had understood that we were in ongoing discussions concerning the possibility of your remaining in the Department or Administration in one of the other senior positions we discussed, including Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division and Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. While we advised the public that you would leave the U.S. Attorney's office in two weeks, I still hoped that your departure could be amicable.

As Bharara put it in a New York Times op-ed, “In my experience, government officials don’t lie about the intentions of others when they are acting in good faith.”

The president himself has also contradicted Barr on an important matter—though Trump himself is so prone to lying and making up facts that this dispute raises fewer questions about Barr’s candor. While Barr’s letter to Berman emphasized that the president had removed Berman at Barr’s request, the president denied playing any role at all. “That’s all up to the attorney general,” Trump said on June 20. “We have a very capable attorney general, so that’s really up to him. I’m not involved.”

Bharara writes in his op-ed that, “Within the Department of Justice, hardworking public servants—in the Southern District of New York and elsewhere—are angry, dismayed and demoralized. I’ve spoken to many of them this weekend. They are disheartened by the bad faith of Bill Barr and his determined efforts to undermine prosecutorial independence.” 

Congress owes these public servants—and the public at large—answers about what happened in this bizarre episode. Having a frank conversation with Berman would be a good place to start.

[fredtoast]

(06-22-2020, 09:00 AM)GMDino Wrote: She.  And Berman's statement implies that she will continue in the same vein as he did.  I beleive that is why he resisted "stepping down" the first time.  The replacement was handpicked with no experience.

The law on this issue is also a bit confusing.

Berman was already an appointed replacement.  The law says that he should serve until a replacement is approved by the Senate.  The law seems also to say that Trump can still remove Berman, but he can't pick another replacement.  That is why letting Berman's assistant take over is "following the law".

[fredtoast]

(06-22-2020, 05:04 AM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Did you expect the Dems to say anything positive?

The Dems could have mentioned Claytons' experience as a DA and his ability to fill the role, but unfortunately Clayton has never been a DA before in his life.

But he is good buddies with the President.

[Dill]

(06-22-2020, 12:14 PM)fredtoast Wrote: The Dems could have mentioned Claytons' experience as a DA and his ability to fill the role, but unfortunately Clayton has never been a DA before in his life.

But he is good buddies with the President.

There. One Dem finally has something nice to say.

[BmorePat87]

(06-22-2020, 05:04 AM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Did you expect the Dems to say anything positive?

"I like the idea of you firing the guy investigating your buddies and replacing him with a guy with zero experience as a DA that will ignore all investigations related to you"

Was that what you expected? 

[GMDino]

Starting to make sense and come together now.

Barr is trying to cover DJT in case he loses in November.

Absolutely outrageous: Barr tried to get SDNY to un-do the part of the Michael Cohen conviction that implicated the President, per NYT.

But the SDNY resisted. Which helps explain last weekend’s attempted takeover.
https://t.co/33GlZdrGd7

— Elie Honig (@eliehonig) June 25, 2020

 

[Stonyhands]

Haha...you are fake news.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/opinion/white-house/437719-ukrainian-to-us-prosecutors-why-dont-you-want-our-evidence-on-democrats%3famp

https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/fired-prosecutor-was-given-biden-ukraine-allegations

[Belsnickel]

(06-28-2020, 08:25 PM)Stonyhands Wrote: Haha...you are fake news.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/opinion/white-house/437719-ukrainian-to-us-prosecutors-why-dont-you-want-our-evidence-on-democrats%3famp

https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/fired-prosecutor-was-given-biden-ukraine-allegations

The first link is a year-old opinion piece which has some updates at the bottom that should be paid attention to. The other link, to a very pro-Trump "news" site (run by the guy who wrote the opinion piece that needed "updates"), isn't being corroborated anywhere. I'll take it seriously when there is some more backing it up.

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

(06-28-2020, 09:22 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: The first link is a year-old opinion piece which has some updates at the bottom that should be paid attention to. The other link, to a very pro-Trump "news" site (run by the guy who wrote the opinion piece that needed "updates"), isn't being corroborated anywhere. I'll take it seriously when there is some more backing it up.

Well, he did write fake news.