'The rope snapped': Ex-federal prosecutor recalls his firing for refusing to target Donald Trump’s enemies

08 September 2022

Republican attorney Geoffrey S. Berman was once an ally of Donald Trump. The former federal prosecutor volunteered on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and he was a law partner of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

But in his forthcoming book, “Holding the Line: Inside the Nation's Preeminent U.S. Attorney's Office and Its Battle with the Trump Justice Department,” Berman reveals that he was fired from his position with the Southern District of New York in 2020 after refusing to prosecute some Democrats who Trump had it in for.

The New York Times has obtained a copy of Berman’s book, which has a September 13 release date on Amazon. In the book, according to Times reporter Benjamin Weiser, Berman describes himself as a Rockefeller Republican — in other words, a moderate Republican. And that would explain why Berman eventually proved incompatible with Trump and the far-right MAGA movement.

Berman, now 62, was a Southern District of New York prosecutor from 1990-1994, and he returned to the Southern District in January 2018 — an announcement made by Jeff Sessions, who was U.S. attorney general for the Trump Administration at the time.

Weiser reports, “Mr. Berman’s book says that during Mr. Trump’s presidency, (Justice) Department officials made ‘overtly political’ demands, choosing targets that would directly further Mr. Trump’s desires for revenge and advantage. Mr. Berman wrote that the pressure was clearly inspired by the president’s openly professed wants.”

The Democrats Trump and his allies wanted to prosecute, according to Berman, included former Secretary of State John Kerry and attorney Gregory Craig (who Trump’s allies accused of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act). But Berman, according to his book, didn’t believe that a prosecution of either Kerry or Craig was warranted.

During his four years in the White House, Trump could turn against fellow Republicans in a hurry. Trump fired Sessions in 2018 for recusing himself from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, and Bill Barr became U.S. attorney general in early 2019. Later, both Barr and Trump turned against Berman, according to “Holding the Line.”

In the book, according to The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly, Berman writes, “The reason Barr wanted me to resign immediately was so I could be replaced with an outsider he trusted.”

Berman also writes, “Throughout my tenure as U.S. attorney, Trump’s Justice Department kept demanding that I use my office to aid them politically, and I kept declining — in ways just tactful enough to keep me from being fired…. I walked this tightrope for two and a half years. Eventually, the rope snapped.”

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