Trump and Barr Discard Law, Morality and Honor
The dismissal of a federal prosecutor investigating matters close to the president is both shocking and unsurprising.
Geoffrey Berman deserved better.
Photographer: Peter Foley/Bloomberg
As the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, Geoffrey Berman sat atop one of the most powerful and independent perches in federal law enforcement. His office has long held dominion over the most significant white-collar crime cases in the country. It has taken on terrorists and organized crime. And sometimes it has investigated or prosecuted people close to the president of the United States.
Berman’s team took down President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, in 2018 on charges of tax evasion, bank fraud and campaign finance violations involving hush money payments to two women who said they had sexual encounters with the president. More recently, Berman has been investigating Rudolph Giuliani, a ubiquitous Trump lawyer and apologist, for possibly violating lobbying laws related to work he’s done in Ukraine. (That’s the same Ukraine that Trump tried to strong-arm into smearing former Vice President Joe Biden, leading to Trump’s impeachment; Berman’s office has already indicted two Giuliani associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, as part of that.)