New book offers scathing account of how Trump allegedly pressured officials into prosecuting his critics: report

A new book is shedding light on how former President Donald Trump’s used the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for political support and to launch attacks against his own critics.

According to The New York Times’ Benjamin Weiser, Trump is also said to have been part of a politically-driven push for the justice department to launch a criminal investigation into former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Weiser’s report on these accounts are pulled from a book titled, “Holding the Line,” which was recently obtained by the news outlet.

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The book, written by Geoffrey Berman, U.S. attorney working for the Southern District of New York, “paints a picture of Justice Department officials motivated by partisan concerns in pursuing investigations or blocking them; in weighing how forthright to be in court filings; and in shopping investigations to other prosecutors’ offices when the Southern District declined to act,” New York Times’ Benjamin Weiser reports.

Weiser also noted question able actions taken by the department in regard to Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen.

“The book contains accounts of how department officials tried to have allusions to Mr. Trump scrubbed from charging papers for Michael D. Cohen, his former personal lawyer, and how the attorney general later tried to have his conviction reversed,” he added.

“It tells of pressure to pursue Mr. Kerry, who had angered Mr. Trump by attempting to preserve the nuclear deal he had negotiated with Iran.”

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The release of the book comes as the former president and his allies continue to push a similar argument about President Joe Biden and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. According to Trump, Biden and Garland have been “using the Justice Department as a weapon after a judge authorized FBI agents to search his Florida house for missing classified records.”

Trump has also insisted that Biden has some form of role in the investigation.

However, accounts from Berman’s book appear to contradict that argument. The book notes: “that during Mr. Trump’s presidency, department officials made ‘overtly political’ demands, choosing targets that would directly further Mr. Trump’s desires for revenge and advantage.”

Berman’s book is scheduled to be released on Tuesday, September 14.

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