Three Plausible—And Troubling—Reasons Why Barr Tried to Force Berman Out
The big question is why.
Why would the president fire a federal prosecutor just five months before an election, with no indication of wrongdoing on the prosecutor’s part, in a manner sure to ignite controversy?
Three days into the scandal around the abrupt dismissal of the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey Berman, we still have no answers.
[Paul Rosenzweig: Why Bill Barr got rid of Geoffrey Berman]
The administration’s handling of Berman’s firing was comically—and typically—inept: The Justice Department announced late on Friday that Berman would be stepping down, only for Berman himself to issue an extraordinary statement indicating that he had no intention of doing so. By Saturday night—after receiving two separate letters from the Justice to be “not involved” just hours after Attorney General William Barr announced that the president himself had dismissed Berman, but the prosecutor departed soon after.)
