Not enough people paid attention to what happened in the Southern District of New York last night, so let me quickly summarize in the most basic of terms.
The Players:
Bill Barr, Attorney General of the United States
Geoffrey Berman, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York
Donald Trump, a bag of that toilet crust in nasty people’s apartments
The Setting:
The Southern District of New York, possibly the most important jurisdiction in the country because it covers Manhattan, where Wall Street crimes take place as well as most of Trump’s fraudulent activity.
The Issue:
Berman is investigating Trump.
Back in 2017 Trump, through then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, requested the resignations of 46 US Attorneys from across the country, and the media went a little crazy in reporting it because it was so abrupt and hadn’t happened in so long, but it was perfectly normal. Obama and Dubbya both replaced US Attorneys from various districts, but they did it gradually. It felt like the new norm because there hadn’t been an abrupt firing in almost 25 years, but it wasn’t unprecedented — Bill Clinton fired 93 (of 94!) US Attorneys after he took office in the early 90s.
Preet Bharara was the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York and in November 2016, Trump told Bharara that he’d be staying in his position because he’d been effective. Unfortunately for Bharara (and all of us), he was investigating two of Trump’s buddies: Tom Price, Trump’s Secretary of Health & Human Services (for writing legislation affecting certain health-related corporations while he was trading stocks for those same corporations), and Roger Ailes/Fox News (for covering up sexual assault and harassment allegations). Trump’s personal attorney, Marc Kasowitz, told Trump that Bharara wouldn’t hesitate to go after him, and Bharara was fired less than a day after he refused to take a call from Trump.
Trump fired Preet Bharara, and Geoffrey Berman was appointed to fill the vacancy by the Chief Judge of the Southern District of New York on an interim basis until Trump appointed someone else. Berman had previously been an Assistant US Attorney in this district back in the 90s and he’s a strong prosecutor. Trump didn’t appoint a successor, and Berman was unanimously elected by all of the judges in this district to fill the position until someone else was appointed and approved by the Senate.
Berman isn’t afraid of Trump any more than Bharara was, so he’s investigating Trump and everyone around him, and Trump has wanted Barr to get rid of him for months. The only reason this didn’t happen sooner is those investigations. If Trump had fired Berman right after he sent Michael Cohen to jail or right after opening an investigation into Rudy Giuliani or Jeffrey Epstein, the uproar would have been deafening. Trump & Barr wanted to take advantage of the country’s shifting focus — we’re all talking about the pandemic and the marches for equality and nobody is really thinking about what the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York is doing. So at 9pm on a Friday night when nobody is supposedly paying attention, Bill Bar said Berman was being replaced by Jay Clayton, a lawyer with no experience as a prosecutor, who is the current chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Clayton told his buddy Trump he was interested in the US Attorney Job and Trump would love to have a friend in that position so that’s that.
Some SDNY news… the U.S. Attorney for N.J. is taking over SDNY on an acting basis as Geoffrey Berman steps down. pic.twitter.com/gio0AHO0oT
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) June 20, 2020
Can we just take a moment to reflect on how boldly this administration lies to us? They said, in print no less, that Geoffrey Berman is stepping down, and he hadn’t even been notified that he was being fired, let alone stepping down.
Berman released a statement saying he found out about his firing at the same time as everyone else and he has no intention to vacate his post before a nominee had been confirmed by the Senate. So now we have another mess of Trump’s making. Nobody knows if Berman can hold on to his post or if he has to vacate while an interim fills the position until a nominee is confirmed.
Also, here’s an interesting wrinkle for Trump: Matroness Lindsey Olin Graham Sugarbaker Deveraux is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, so Trump probably thinks Clayton will sail through the Committee and onto the floor for a vote. Lady G doesn’t seem inclined to cooperate.
The fate of Clayton’s nomination is also uncertain. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally, said Saturday he had not heard from the Trump administration about its plans to replace Berman but praised Clayton as “a fine man and accomplished lawyer.”
However, Graham (R-S.C.) indicated he would defer to the Senate’s “blue slip” tradition, in which individual senators may effectively block the nomination of someone who hails from their home state. That would empower Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand to stop Clayton from advancing through the Judiciary Committee — and Schumer has already indicated he thinks Clayton should withdraw from consideration.
(cont. Politico)
Whether Berman keeps his post, loses his post to Clayton, or loses it to someone else, Trump is clearly trying to halt investigations into his and his buddies’ shady dealings by replacing a US Attorney with his friend.
Checks and balances my ass.
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