gregory craig
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">an 9 22 ah</span></font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Republican attorney Geoffrey S. Berman was once an ally of Donald Trump. The former federal prosecutor volunteered on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and he was a law partner of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But in his forthcoming book, “Holding the Line: Inside the Nation's Preeminent U.S. Attorney's Office and Its Battle with the Trump Justice Department,” Berman reveals that he was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/08/nyregion/geoffrey-berman-trump-book.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">fired from his position</a> with the Southern District of New York in 2020 after <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7z398/trump-tried-prosecuting-democrats-geoffrey-berman" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">refusing to prosecute</a> some Democrats who Trump had it in for.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The New York Times has obtained a copy of Berman’s book, which has a September 13 release date on Amazon. In the book, according to Times reporter Benjamin Weiser, Berman describes himself as a Rockefeller Republican — in other words, a moderate Republican. And that would explain why Berman eventually proved incompatible with Trump and the far-right MAGA movement.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/bill-barr-refers-to-trump-as-a-lame-duck-seeking-revenge/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Bill Barr refers to Trump as a lame duck seeking revenge</a>
</font></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Berman, now 62, was a Southern District of New York prosecutor from 1990-1994, and he returned to the Southern District in January 2018 — an announcement made by Jeff Sessions, who was U.S. attorney general for the Trump Administration at the time.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Weiser reports, “Mr. Berman’s book says that during Mr. Trump’s presidency, (Justice) Department officials made ‘overtly political’ demands, choosing targets that would directly further Mr. Trump’s desires for revenge and advantage. Mr. Berman wrote that the pressure was clearly inspired by the president’s openly professed wants.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Democrats Trump and his allies wanted to prosecute, according to Berman, included former<b> Secretary of State John Kerry</b> and attorney Gregory Craig (who Trump’s allies accused of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act). But Berman, according to his book, didn’t believe that a prosecution of either Kerry or Craig was warranted.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE: </strong><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/cassidy-hutchinson-2657757307/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>'Flag-waving' liberal Norman Lear, now 100, warns against the 'threat of authoritarianism' America faces</strong></a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During his four years in the White House, Trump could turn against fellow Republicans in a hurry. Trump fired Sessions in 2018 for <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/12/politics/jeff-sessions-trump-alabama-tommy-tuberville/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">recusing himself</a> from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, and Bill Barr became U.S. attorney general in early 2019. Later, both Barr and Trump turned against Berman, according to “Holding the Line.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the book, according to <span style="transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly</span>, guk Berman writes, “The reason Barr wanted me to resign immediately was so I could be replaced with an outsider he trusted.”
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Berman also writes, “Throughout my tenure as U.S. attorney, Trump’s Justice Department kept demanding that I use my office to aid them politically, and I kept declining — in ways just tactful enough to keep me from being fired…. I walked this tightrope for two and a half years. Eventually, the rope snapped.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE: </strong><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/09/bill-barr-destroys-donald-trump/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Bill Barr destroys Donald Trump: 'Unprecedented for a president to take all this classified info'</strong></a></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</span></font></div><div><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">vice no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">Prosecuted While President</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">In a new book, the former U.S. Attorney in Manhattan says Trump’s Justice Department “kept demanding that I use my office to aid them politically.”</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">By Paul Blest</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">September 8, 2022, </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">trump prosecuting democrats jeffrey berman</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">Former President Donald Trump has spent the weeks since the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago describing the investigation as yet another witch hunt brought against him by partisan Democrats. </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">But Trump’s own former U.S. Attorney in Manhattan reportedly claims in a new book that the Department of Justice pushed him to prosecute Democrats and even bring criminal charges against former Secretary of State John Kerry. </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;"><b>Geoffrey Berman spent two and a half years as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, one of the most high-profile prosecutorial positions in the federal government, before he was forced out in June 2020. Prior to that, Berman had volunteered on the Trump campaign transition and was a law partner of Rudy Giuliani.</b></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">But in Berman’s new book, he says that he quickly fell out of favor with the Department of Justice because he declined to prosecute Democrats on trumped-up charges, according to the New York Times, which obtained a copy of the book. </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">“Throughout my tenure as U.S. attorney,” Berman wrote in the new book, “Trump’s Justice Department kept demanding that I use my office to aid them politically, and I kept declining — in ways just tactful enough to keep me from being fired.”</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">Specifically, Berman says that he was pressured to pursue charges against former Secretary of State John Kerry, who made Trump angry when he attempted to salvage the Iran nuclear deal during Trump’s presidency. </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">Berman also said a senior Justice Department official called one of his deputies and pressed him to charge Gregory Craig, a Democratic lawyer accused by Republicans of breaking the Foreign Agents Registration Act, because Berman’s office had gone after Trump allies for breaking the law. </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">Berman said he believed Craig was innocent of the charge, and he ultimately was not charged, but the Justice Department official allegedly told Berman’s deputy that it was “time for you guys to even things out.” </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;"><b>The official, former Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Ed O’Callaghan,</b> told the Times Berman’s claim was “categorically false.” </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">Former Attorney General William Barr pushed for Berman to be replaced with an administration ally, and Trump fired him after he refused to resign in June 2020. “The reason Barr wanted me to resign immediately was so I could be replaced with an outsider he trusted,” Berman writes in the book, according to the Guardian. </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">“I walked this tightrope for two and a half years,” he said. “Eventually, the rope snapped.”</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></font></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">Follow Paul Blest on Twitter.</p><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</span></font></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">an 9 22 ah</span></font></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Republican attorney Geoffrey S. Berman was once an ally of Donald Trump. The former federal prosecutor volunteered on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and he was a law partner of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But in his forthcoming book, “Holding the Line: Inside the Nation's Preeminent U.S. Attorney's Office and Its Battle with the Trump Justice Department,” Berman reveals that he was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/08/nyregion/geoffrey-berman-trump-book.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">fired from his position</a> with the Southern District of New York in 2020 after <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7z398/trump-tried-prosecuting-democrats-geoffrey-berman" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">refusing to prosecute</a> some Democrats who Trump had it in for.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The New York Times has obtained a copy of Berman’s book, which has a September 13 release date on Amazon. In the book, according to Times reporter Benjamin Weiser, Berman describes himself as a Rockefeller Republican — in other words, a moderate Republican. And that would explain why Berman eventually proved incompatible with Trump and the far-right MAGA movement.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong>READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/bill-barr-refers-to-trump-as-a-lame-duck-seeking-revenge/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Bill Barr refers to Trump as a lame duck seeking revenge</a>
</strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Berman, now 62, was a Southern District of New York prosecutor from 1990-1994, and he returned to the Southern District in January 2018 — an announcement made by Jeff Sessions, who was U.S. attorney general for the Trump Administration at the time.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Weiser reports, “Mr. Berman’s book says that during Mr. Trump’s presidency, (Justice) Department officials made ‘overtly political’ demands, choosing targets that would directly further Mr. Trump’s desires for revenge and advantage. Mr. Berman wrote that the pressure was clearly inspired by the president’s openly professed wants.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Democrats Trump and his allies wanted to prosecute, according to Berman, included former</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> Secretary of State John Kerry</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> and attorney Gregory Craig (who Trump’s allies accused of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act). But Berman, according to his book, didn’t believe that a prosecution of either Kerry or Craig was warranted.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE: </strong><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/cassidy-hutchinson-2657757307/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>'Flag-waving' liberal Norman Lear, now 100, warns against the 'threat of authoritarianism' America faces</strong></a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During his four years in the White House, Trump could turn against fellow Republicans in a hurry. Trump fired Sessions in 2018 for <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/12/politics/jeff-sessions-trump-alabama-tommy-tuberville/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">recusing himself</a> from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, and Bill Barr became U.S. attorney general in early 2019. Later, both Barr and Trump turned against Berman, according to “Holding the Line.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the book, according to <span style="transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly</span>, guk Berman writes, “The reason Barr wanted me to resign immediately was so I could be replaced with an outsider he trusted.”
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Berman also writes, “Throughout my tenure as U.S. attorney, Trump’s Justice Department kept demanding that I use my office to aid them politically, and I kept declining — in ways just tactful enough to keep me from being fired…. I walked this tightrope for two and a half years. Eventually, the rope snapped.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE: </strong><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/09/bill-barr-destroys-donald-trump/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Bill Barr destroys Donald Trump: 'Unprecedented for a president to take all this classified info'</strong></a></font></p></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</span></font></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/08/nyregion/geoffrey-berman-trump-book.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/08/nyregion/geoffrey-berman-trump-book.html</a></span></font></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</span></font></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ref no lnx</span></font></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</span></font></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Trump Pushed Officials to Prosecute His Critics, Ex-U.S. Attorney Says</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Geoffrey S. Berman, who headed the Manhattan office, says in a book the Justice Department pushed cases, against John Kerry and others, to help Mr. Trump.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By Benjamin Weiser</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Sept. 8, 2022</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A book by a former top federal prosecutor offers new details about how the Justice Department under President Donald J. Trump sought to use the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan to support Mr. Trump politically and pursue his critics — even pushing the office to open a criminal investigation of former secretary of state John Kerry.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The prosecutor, Geoffrey S. Berman, was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York for two and a half years until June 2020, when Mr. Trump fired him after he refused a request to resign by Attorney General William P. Barr, who sought to replace him with an administration ally.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A copy of Mr. Berman’s book, “Holding the Line,” was obtained by The New York Times before its scheduled publication Tuesday.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The book paints a picture of Justice Department officials motivated by partisan concerns in pursuing investigations or blocking them; in weighing how forthright to be in court filings; and in shopping investigations to other prosecutors’ offices when the Southern District declined to act.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The book contains accounts of how department officials tried to have allusions to Mr. Trump scrubbed from charging papers for Michael D. Cohen, his former personal lawyer, and how the attorney general later tried to have his conviction reversed. <b>It tells of pressure to pursue Mr. Kerry, who had angered Mr. Trump by attempting to preserve the nuclear deal he had negotiated with Iran.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And in September 2018, Mr. Berman writes, two months before the November midterms, a senior department official called Mr. Berman’s deputy, cited the Southern District’s recent prosecutions of two prominent Trump loyalists, and bluntly asserted that the office, which had been investigating Gregory B. Craig, a powerful Democratic lawyer, should charge him — and should do so before Election Day.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“It’s time for you guys to even things out,” the official said, according to Mr. Berman.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The book comes as Mr. Trump and his supporters have accused the Biden administration and Attorney General Merrick Garland of using the Justice Department as a weapon after a judge authorized FBI agents to search his Florida house for missing classified records. Mr. Trump, who is a likely presidential candidate in 2024, has suggested without evidence that President Biden is playing a role in that investigation.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">However, Mr. Berman’s book says that during Mr. Trump’s presidency, department officials made “overtly political” demands, choosing targets that would directly further Mr. Trump’s desires for revenge and advantage. Mr. Berman wrote that the pressure was clearly inspired by the president’s openly professed wants.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>In the book, Mr. Berman, who as U.S. attorney did not give news interviews, offers new details about the high-profile prosecutions of defendants like Mr. Cohen; Chris Collins, a Republican congressman from New York; Michael Avenatti, the celebrity attorney and Trump antagonist; and Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>He says there were cases his office pursued without pressure from Washington, but in others, he makes clear his greatest challenges did not always have to do with the law.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>“Throughout my tenure as U.S. attorney,” Mr. Berman, 62, writes, “Trump’s Justice Department kept demanding that I use my office to aid them politically, and I kept declining </b>— in ways just tactful enough to keep me from being fired.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“I walked this tightrope for two and a half years,” writes Mr. Berman, who is now in private practice. “Eventually, the rope snapped.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mr. Berman, who in the book describes himself as a Rockefeller Republican, had been a federal prosecutor in the Manhattan office from 1990 to 1994, and went on to become a co-managing partner of the New Jersey office of the law firm Greenberg Traurig.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Numerous inquiries. Since former President Donald J. Trump left office, he has been facing several civil and criminal investigations into his business dealings and political activities. Here is a look at some notable cases:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Classified documents inquiry. The F.B.I. searched Mr. Trump’s Florida home as part of the Justice Department’s investigation into his handling of classified materials. The inquiry is focused on documents that Mr. Trump had brought with him to Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence, when he left the White House.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Jan. 6 investigations. In a series of public hearings, the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack laid out a comprehensive narrative of Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. This evidence could allow federal prosecutors, who are conducting a parallel criminal investigation, to indict Mr. Trump.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Georgia election interference case. Fani T. Willis, the Atlanta-area district attorney, has been leading a wide-ranging criminal investigation into the efforts of Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia. This case could pose the most immediate legal peril for the former president and his associates.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">New York State civil inquiry. Letitia James, the New York attorney general, has been conducting a civil investigation into Mr. Trump and his family business. The case is focused on whether Mr. Trump’s statements about the value of his assets were part of a pattern of fraud or were simply Trumpian showmanship.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Manhattan criminal case. Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, has been investigating whether Mr. Trump or his family business intentionally submitted false property values to potential lenders. But the inquiry faded from view after signs emerged suggesting that Mr. Trump was unlikely to be indicted.]</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>During the 2016 presidential primary season, Mr. Berman volunteered for Mr. Trump’s campaign and later for his transition committee. Originally believing he might be named U.S. attorney for New Jersey, he was instead tapped to lead the Southern District, the most prestigious prosecutor’s office outside Washington. It handles Wall Street crime, international terrorism, political corruption and complex frauds.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mr. Berman met briefly with Mr. Trump in the Oval Office in June 2017, where the president did most of the talking, he writes. Mr. Berman, a Princeton resident, said he would need to move into the city. Mr. Trump recommended he live in downtown Manhattan, near the Southern District’s offices, ahead of what could be a dicey confirmation hearing.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Make it a rental,” Mr. Trump said.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In March 2018, some two months after Mr. Berman assumed the post, the Justice Department, then headed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, referred to the Southern District the investigation of Mr. Craig.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The allegations focused on whether Mr. Craig, a White House counsel under President Barack Obama, had concealed work he had done years earlier for the government of Ukraine in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and whether he had lied to the Justice Department when questioned about it.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">After months of investigation, the Southern District and Justice Department met with Mr. Craig’s lawyers, who made a presentation on his behalf. After his lawyers left and prosecutors voiced their opinions, Mr. Berman said he believed Mr. Craig was innocent of the FARA charge and so a jury would be unlikely to convict him on a false statement count.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A short time later, around mid-September, Mr. Berman writes, his deputy, Robert S. Khuzami, walked into his office and said he had just gotten a call from<b> Edward O’Callaghan, the principal associate deputy attorney general, a political appointee. Mr. O’Callaghan, the book says, asked that the office “even things out” by charging Mr. Craig before Election Day.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In that conversation, Mr. Berman writes, Mr. O’Callaghan kept reminding Mr. Khuzami that the Southern District had just prosecuted Representative Collins and Mr. Cohen.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Mr. O’Callaghan said in a brief interview Wednesday that he had not read the book, but after being told by The Times of the statements attributed to him, called them “categorically false.”</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Mr. Berman says he ignored the edict.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In mid-December, after a thorough investigation, Mr. Berman informed the department that his office was declining to prosecute Mr. Craig. <b>He writes that he soon learned that the department had “peddled” the case to the U.S. attorney in Washington, where Mr. Craig was eventually indicted and tried on a single count of making false statements.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On Sept. 4, 2019, Mr. Craig was acquitted by the jury in less than five hours.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>One of his lawyers, William W. Taylor III, said after the trial that the department had “hounded” his client “without any evidence and without any purpose.”</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mr. Berman writes: “The verdict felt like justice. Greg Craig should never have been prosecuted.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">One case Mr. Berman says his office had to fight to keep alive was the 2018 prosecution of Mr. Cohen, the president’s former lawyer. That August, Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations over payments he arranged before the 2016 election, to keep two women from disclosing affairs they said they had with Mr. Trump. Mr. Berman did not participate in the investigation, because he had volunteered for the campaign. But he was later briefed on interference in the case.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Before the plea, Mr. Berman writes, as his office was preparing a charging document detailing the crimes, a Justice Department official badgered his deputy, Mr. Khuzami, without success, to remove all references to a person identified as “Individual-1.” It was Mr. Trump.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In the months after Mr. Cohen’s guilty plea, Mr. Berman writes, the Southern District continued to pursue investigations related to possible campaign finance violations, apparently by others in Mr. Trump’s orbit.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But after Mr. Barr became attorney general in February 2019, Mr. Berman writes, he tried to kill the investigations and suggested that Mr. Cohen’s conviction on campaign finance charges be reversed, even though six months had passed since Mr. Cohen had entered his guilty plea.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In late February, he writes, Mr. Barr summoned the Southern District deputy, Mr. Khuzami, who was overseeing the inquiry, to challenge the legal basis for Mr. Cohen’s plea and “the reasoning behind pursuing similar campaign finance charges against other individuals.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">His office was ordered to pause all investigative steps, Mr. Berman writes. “Not a single document in our possession could be reviewed,” he says. Mr. Barr assigned the department’s Office of Legal Counsel to study the issue.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mr. Berman says his office submitted memos to the department in support of its position, and top prosecutors met with officials in Washington, including Mr. Barr, to press the case.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">[Read More on the Trump Investigations</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Key developments in the inquiries into the former president and his allies.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Special Master: A judge granted former President Donald J. Trump’s request for an independent arbiter, known as a special master, to review the documents the F.B.I. seized from Mar-a-Lago. The ruling surprised experts and could slow the investigation.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The ‘60-Day Rule’: As midterms near, the Justice Department is weighing whether to temporarily scale back the criminal investigations involving Mr. Trump because of an unwritten rule forbidding overt actions that could improperly influence the vote.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Election Data: Newly released surveillance video from rural Coffee County, Ga., raised questions about the extent to which election data was improperly shared with pro-Trump figures who were challenging the 2020 election results.]</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In late April, with the case effectively stalled, Audrey Strauss, who had succeeded Mr. Khuzami as Mr. Berman’s deputy, finally persuaded Mr. Barr there was no basis to dismiss any charges against Mr. Cohen and that the investigations should be completed, Mr. Berman writes. The inquiry eventually ended without additional charges.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mr. Barr did not respond to a request for comment.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>After the September 2019 acquittal of Gregory Craig, Mr. Berman writes, he hoped the verdict would ease pressure on the Southern District “to prosecute yet another enemy of the president” — Mr. Kerry.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“That was naïve on my part,” Mr. Berman says.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Mr. Kerry, a Vietnam War veteran and a former longtime Massachusetts senator, was secretary of state under President Obama, a role in which he led the lengthy negotiations that produced the Iran nuclear accord — that administration’s signature foreign policy achievement. Mr. Trump, during his presidential campaign, called the deal “insane” and a “disaster.”</b></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">On May 7, 2018, Mr. Trump tweeted about Mr. Kerry’s “possibly illegal Shadow Diplomacy” — an apparent reference to reports of Mr. Kerry having conversations as a private citizen with Iranian and other officials.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Mr. Trump tweeted another attack on Mr. Kerry the next day — the same day Mr. Trump announced the United States was withdrawing from the accord.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On May 9, Mr. Berman writes, Justice Department officials told his office that it would be responsible for an investigation into Mr. Kerry’s Iran-related conduct. The F.B.I. would join the inquiry.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The focus was on the Logan Act, a rarely invoked 1799 statute barring private citizens from unauthorized negotiations with foreign governments, which has been criticized as unconstitutionally vague. Mr. Berman notes that no one has ever been successfully prosecuted under the law.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But, as he puts it, “The conduct that had annoyed the president was now a priority of the Department of Justice.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Although Mr. Berman says he does not know what prompted the Justice Department to seek a Kerry investigation, “No one needed to talk with Trump to know what he wanted. You could read his tweets.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mr. Berman writes that Mr. Kerry did not learn of the investigation and it never leaked into the news media.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Mr. Trump, meanwhile, kept tweeting. “Iran is being given VERY BAD advice by @JohnKerry,” he tweeted on the morning of April 22, 2019. “Big violation of Logan Act?”</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">That afternoon, Mr. Berman says, one of the co-chiefs of the Southern District’s national security unit got a call from a Justice Department official, asking why the office was delaying seeking an order to review “header information,” such as the date, recipients and senders of Mr. Kerry’s electronic communications. A more senior official pressed the issue again the next day with Southern District officials.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">Mr. Berman writes that the pattern was “clear — and outrageous.” He said that the investigation began after Mr. Trump started tweeting “his displeasure about Kerry,” and a new tweet 11 months later prompted further prodding.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>“And they were asking us, basically, what’s taking so long? Why aren’t you going harder and faster at this enemy of the president? There was no other way for me to look at it,” Mr. Berman writes.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A spokesman for Mr. Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mr. Berman says that after an investigation of roughly a year, his office told the Justice Department that it would not prosecute Mr. Kerry.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>A short time later, on Sept. 19, 2019, Mr. Berman writes, a senior adviser to the attorney general called to say that Mr. Barr expected to take the Kerry case to another U.S. attorney’s office, this time in Maryland.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>That office reached the same conclusion as the Southern District had, Mr. Berman writes, “and the Kerry investigation just quietly died — as it should have.”</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Alain Delaquérière contributed research.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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