Attempt to fire powerful NY prosecutor appears to be latest move to protect Trump
Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN Updated 12:06 PM ET, Sat June 20, 2020
The Trump administration's attempt to oust one of America's most powerful prosecutors raises fresh and glaring suspicions about its assault on the independence of the justice system and its respect for the rule of law that underpins constitutional governance.
Attorney General William Barr's declaration he replaced Geoffrey Berman of the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York renewed the debate over the extent to which Barr is acting on President Donald Trump's interests rather than the nation's. The office of Berman, who is refusing to quit, is leading a probe into Trump's lawyer Rudolph Giuliani and associates and has also indicted a Turkish state-owned firm involved in an Iran sanctions-busting case which Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has raised with Trump.
Scores of former Justice Department officials had already called for Barr to quit over a series of interventions that appear specifically designed to benefit Trump politically. Berman's refusal to go quietly meanwhile set off a new crisis and governmental showdown for an already reeling administration that is struggling to cope with a pandemic, a consequent economic crisis and a national reckoning on race.
The President had been thinking of removing Berman for two years and believes that the investigation into Giuliani is an attempt to damage him politically, two sources told CNN's Kevin Liptak. But Friday night's dramatic events stoke fresh intrigue of exactly why Barr and Trump are suddenly so keen to oust Berman -- a Trump donor who was installed by the Trump administration in 2018 -- less than five months before the election.
Berman, before walking into his office in downtown New York Saturday morning, told reporters, "I issued a statement last night, I have nothing to add to that this morning. I'm just here to do my job."
Fundamentally, the episode reveals the extent to which a President with authoritarian impulses, who has worked constantly to challenge the justice system's independence and sought to force it to act in his own personal interests, is prepared to act with impunity in the wake of his Senate acquittal by fellow Republicans on impeachment charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
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