WASHINGTON - S Attorney General William Barr said President Trump fired the US attorney in Manhattan, New York, who had led inquiries into Trump circles, deepening a crisis over the independence of law enforcement and the president’s purge of officials he views as disloyal.
President Trump removed the prosecutor, Geoffrey S. Berman, United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, after he had refused to step down on Friday night.
Trump’s move jeopardises the independence of the judiciary in the United States, one of the pillars of the American way of life.
The office successfully prosecuted the president’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, who went to prison, and has been investigating Mr. Trump’s current personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani.
Mr. Barr had abruptly announced the resignation late Friday night of Mr. Berman, but Mr. Berman then quickly issued a statement denying that he was leaving. “I have not resigned, and have no intention of resigning, my position,” Mr. Berman said, adding that he had learned that he was “stepping down” from a Justice Department news release.
In a statement released on Saturday, Mr. Barr said Mr. Berman had “chosen public spectacle over public service.”
“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,” the statement read. He said Mr. Berman’s top deputy, Audrey Strauss, would become the acting United States Attorney.
The dispute over one of the Justice Department’s most prestigious jobs came as the agency had already been roiled by questions over whether Mr. Barr had undercut its tradition of independence from political interference.
Mr. Barr’s announcement late Friday that Mr. Trump was seeking to replace Mr. Berman was made with no notice. Mr. Barr said the president intended to nominate as Mr. Berman’s successor Jay Clayton, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who has never served as a prosecutor.
Mr. Barr’s attempt to fire Mr. Berman had received unexpected pushback from Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and a close Trump ally.
Mr. Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee — which would approve Mr. Clayton’s nomination — suggested in a statement that he would allow New York’s two Democratic senators to thwart the nomination through a procedural maneuver.
Several dismissals have come late on Friday nights, a time that many White Houses have used to disclose news that they would prefer receive little attention.
The attorney general’s interventions in high-profile cases involving the onetime Trump advisers Roger J. Stone Jr. and Michael T. Flynn have prompted accusations from current and former law enforcement officials that Mr. Barr has politicized the department.
Over the last year, Mr. Berman’s office brought indictments against two close associates of the president’s current lawyer, Mr. Giuliani, and began an investigation into Mr. Giuliani himself, focusing on whether his efforts to dig up dirt in Ukraine on the president’s political rivals violated laws on lobbying for foreign entities.
