justice department. his message was unambiguous. it was time for me, jeffrey berman, the u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york and lifelong republican, it was time for me to take one for the home team. he came into my office and closed the door, quote, you re not going to believe the conversation i just had with o callaghan, before sharing the details. the top leadership at doj wanted me to bring criminal charges against a private attorney who had once been president barack obama s white house counsel and they wanted me to bring those charges before election day. i said, you have got to be f ing kidding me. i wish, he said, but no. doj s rationale for this demand had nothing to do with evidence or law. o callaghan kept reminding him that our office had just prosecuted two high profile trump loyalists, republican congressman chris collins and crump s private attorney, michael cohen. he related that o callaghan told him bluntly, quote, it s time for you guys to ev
that s how it starts. that s the very beginning. this was written by jeffrey berman who ran sdny in southern district of new york for half of trump s time in office. he was fired from that job at sdny and fired loudly in a way that made a difference. we ll have more on that in a second. that s important. but now since he is the former u.s. attorney, he has written this book. to put it in the public record how trump and his administration tried to force federal prosecutors to go after trump s political enemies to go after democrats, to help trump s allies. regardless of the law. regardless of the crimes committed or lack thereof. geoff berman was told to bring the prosecution before the midterm elections. told to do so because some republicans had been prosecuted and so now it was time to prosecute a democrat. he was told to even things out. berman refused to do it. he didn t bring that prosecution. so, yea rule of law for a second. what happened after geoff berman refused
two senator, he has written to the justice department tonight and announced that the judiciary committee is launching a formal investigation. he s asked the department to hand over its documents and communications around these episodes that you described. do you believe that there will be documentation that these communications will be noted in some way that the department can provide to the judiciary committee so they can investigate these allegations? oh, i m sure there are documents that are going to be available. you know, rachel, my book, as you know, is all about transparency. you know, i wanted people to understand the full scope of the outrageous and improper political interference by trump s justice department in the cases of the southern district of new york. it demonstrates what trump is capable of and what he s likely to do, and it also provides a front line view of just how
i knew at the time that if barr got me out, the way he wanted to, he would put an outsider in that office who he trusted. and our sensitive investigations that were going on would have been jeopardized. so i was very noisy. i told the entire country what i thought barr was doing and how he crossed the line. and i think because of that very noisy exit, as you said, audrey strauss took over as acting u.s. attorney, and she s a person of the highest integrity. and an icon of the new york bar. when you put out that press release, when you pushed back in that noisy way, you said, i m quoting here, our investigations will move forward without delay or interruption. i intend to insure this office s important cases continue unimpeded. and you explain in the book that you chose those words carefully because they referenced the actual language of the criminal statute on obstruction of
it was coming out. it s from david corn, called american psychosis, and it s basically a modern history of the right, particularly how the right and the republican party have dealt with extremists in their midst over the time leading up to the trump era. and as much as we feel like what s going on right now is all unprecedented and things have never been this nuts, what david corn is writing about in his irreducible, ineffable david corn way, is this cautionary tale for what s happened today and also a reminder that we have dealt with some of these dynamics before. for example, he writes in his new book about the role the far right conspiracy organization, the john birch society, how instrument that organization was in pushing the republican party to the right in the mid-20th century. also specifically in helping make far right senator barry goldwater the republican nominee for president in 1964.