WASHINGTON — Attorney General William Barr said Saturday that at his request, President Donald Trump had fired Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan.
Trump worked with another Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark, to try to overturn the Georgia vote. Jeffrey Clark, a Justice Department official, was considered as a replacement for the AG Jeffrey Rosen became acting Attorney General when Bill Barr stepped down before Christmas
Berman's office filed charges last fall, accusing them of violating federal campaign finance laws. Berman suggested he gave up the fight because Barr acknowledged that Berman's deputy, Audrey Strauss, would take over the office, rather than the administration's announced choice, Jay Clayton, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Rex Tillerson, a former oil executive, was Donald Trump's first secretary of state. Per the BBC, he was the one who "pushed" to end Russian sanctions and resume "peace talks with North Korea" (which means he's about two degrees away from Dennis Rodman ). Nonetheless, Trump hit him with his famous "You're fired" — but why?
Dana Boente, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, was named as acting attorney general. Spicer’s statement said Yates had “betrayed the Department of Justice” by refusing to defend Trump’s order. The statement added that Yates, a career prosecutor whom Trump named as acting attorney general, is “weak on borders ...
Trump’s administration made the decision to appoint Yates as acting attorney general as well as to allow top federal prosecutors around the country who had been appointed by Obama to continue serving. Not long after the White House’s announcement, there was a flurry of activity on the fourth floor of the Justice Department building, ...
On January 30, 2017, Acting Attorney General Sally Q. Yates issued a memorandum barring Department of Justice Attorney’s from presenting arguments in defense of the President’s January 27, 2017, Executive Order entitled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States.”.
In other words, the prosecutor could not be fired because his investigation came too close to the Watergate cover-up.
Bork complied, and fired the special prosecutor. It was a dramatic episode in constitutional history that gave rise to the independent counsel statute, and two decades later, President Bill Clinton’s impeachment. Here’s why the feverish comparisons to Yates’ firing are off mark.
Announcing her firing, the president wrote that Yates had “betrayed the Department of Justice by refusing to enforce a legal order.”. Charges of betrayal will only serve to chill voices of dissent within the Justice Department, and limit internal checks on the White House.
In 1973, Attorney General Elliot Richardson appointed Archibald Cox as an independent special prosecutor to investigate the break-in at the Watergate Hotel. Cox, a former solicitor general, issued subpoenas to President Nixon for taped Oval Office conversations. Nixon refused. Under the law in effect at the time, ...
On Monday evening, Acting Attorney General Sally Yates announced that under her leadership, the Justice Department would not defend President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration. After acknowledging that the Office of Legal Counsel had reviewed the policy, and noting that the Civil Division could defend it in court, ...
He too refused to fire Cox, and instead resigned. Third in line was Robert Bork. The solicitor general, now the acting attorney general, believed the president’s order was constitutional and appropriate. Bork complied, and fired the special prosecutor.
Herman Pfleger, former legal adviser at the State Department, once explained, “‘You should never say ‘no’ to your client when the law and your conscience say ‘yes’; but you should never, ever say ‘yes’ when your law and conscience say ‘no.’”.
Most feasibly – and most alarmingly to his opponents – Trump may be able to appoint anyone he chooses as attorney general until January 2019 once the Senate breaks for its summer recess next month. The US president is empowered under the constitution to “fill up all vacancies” during the recess.
The president’s online bullying of the attorney general is only the clearest example of a tendency to publicly trash members of his team who fall out of favour, rather than address their shortcomings or remove them from their jobs.
To the dismay of the White House, the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein – overseeing the Russia saga in lieu of Sessions – proceeded to appoint Robert Mueller, a formidable former FBI director, ...
Nine minutes later, he directly accused the acting director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, of corruption. Garbling a reference to a donation McCabe’s wife received from groups associated with a Clinton ally for a Virginia state senate campaign, Trump falsely said McCabe had taken “ $700,000 from H for wife ”.
When Barack Obama tried to do the same with other positions, the Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell kept the chamber in session with token announcements each morning even after senators had gone home for their vacations. It is not clear whether he would do the same to stop a Republican president.
Spicer, who faced even worse, eventually quit. When he dismissed Comey – after more Twitter abuse – Trump could not bring himself to call, and instead had his bodyguard deliver a letter. Trump has long claimed to be the smartest guy in business.
U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman agrees to step down after Trump fires him, House Democrats launch probe. Berman said Saturday that he would not fight the move and will be leaving the office in the hands of his deputy, effective immediately.
Shortly afterwards, Berman, who had defied Barr's earlier demand for his resignation, announced that he would not resist the order and would step down, leaving the high-profile prosecutor's office in the hands of his deputy, Audrey Strauss.
Berman was also overseeing the investigation of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani's business activities, and the prosecution of two Florida businessmen, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, former associates of Giuliani who were tied to the Ukraine impeachment investigation. Berman's office filed charges last fall, accusing them of violating federal campaign finance laws.
AG Barr tells Manhattan U.S. Attorney Berman that he's been fired in letter. WASHINGTON — Attorney General William Barr said Saturday that at his request, President Donald Trump had fired Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan. Shortly afterwards, Berman, who had defied Barr's earlier demand for his resignation, ...
Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called for an Inspector General investigation into the reasons behind Berman's firing on Saturday and for Jay Clayton, the Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman who Barr said he was nominating for the position to “withdraw his name from consideration.”
In a letter to Berman, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Barr said he was "surprised and quite disappointed" after Berman said he would not resign in a public statement Friday night.
Donald Trump planned to fire his Attorney General for refusing to overturn election results and replace him with one who would, according to a bombshell report. Jeffrey Rosen, who was serving as acting Attorney General after Bill Barr resigned just before Christmas, would not agree to upend the presidential election result in Georgia, ...
Trump complained to Justice Department leaders that the U.S. attorney in Atlanta, Byung J. Pak, was not trying to find evidence for the election fraud claims promoted by Rudy Giuliani and others. Pak resigned on January 4, and a watchdog is now investigating the circumstances of his resignation, The Washington Post reported.
Rosen was serving as the deputy Attorney General when Barr announced his resignation, on December 14, giving a week's notice.
Jeffrey Rosen became acting Attorney General when Bill Barr stepped down before Christmas. He even went as far as staging an 'Apprentice-style' interview with Clark and Rosen, with both men arguing to have the job, according to the report.
Trump wanted Rosen to overturn the election result in Georgia: Rosen refused. The then-president considered installing Jeffrey Clark in Rosen's place. Clark drafted a letter that he wanted Rosen to send to Georgia state legislators. The letter falsely said the Justice Department was investigating voter fraud.
Donald Trump is the king of catchphrases — from the ferocious chants of "lock her up" amidst the Hilary Clinton email scandal to the terse, repeated denials of "fake news." The latter serves as the ultimate irony as we watched the president's term seemingly end in a flurry of tweets flagged for inaccuracy with the image of Rudy Giuliani standing at a press conference podium in the parking lot of Four Seasons Total Landscaping.
Vindman's lawyer told BBC that his client was specifically fired for his testimony. The veteran was reportedly "escorted from the White House" (along with his twin brother, who also served the National Security Council) and subject to a "campaign of bullying, intimidation and retaliation" by Trump.
McMaster was ultimately fired in a tweet after 13 months. Today, his run in the Trump administration is a small blip in an otherwise storied career that garnered him a spot on Time ' s 2014 list of 100 most influential people. He's since released a memoir titled Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World.
According to The Washington Post, she believed it discriminated against Muslims — an unconstitutional offense — and "sent a memo to Justice Department employees" asking them not to enforce it. Yates was fired shortly after, and the White House came out and admitted that it was largely to do with Trump's travel ban.
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who served as the leading Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, was another casualty of Donald Trump 's impeachment case. According to the BBC, the former aide and "decorated Iraq war veteran" testified as a witness during the proceedings, where he revealed the details of the infamous phone call where Trump seemingly asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the Biden family.
Chris Krebs fought back against election misinformation. Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images. Following Joe Biden's projected presidential win, Donald Trump was fervently touting claims of voter fraud, so much so that he filed several election lawsuits in an attempt to stop key states from certifying their poll results.
As The New Yorker put it, the president was in the midst of a "Pentagon Purge," firing the likes of top officials who clashed with his ideas. According to the Boston Globe, Esper's firing — which was announced on Twitter in true Trump form — may have very well "been a simple act of revenge" that was brewing for months.