Opinion
Trump's Berman-SDNY disaster suggests William
Barr is not so smart after all
Lloyd Green
The attorney general lied about the US attorney from
New York, had to fire him, and landed the president with a big problem
Published
onSun 21 Jun 2020 13.21 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/21/donald-trump-geoffrey-berman-sdny-william-barr
Maybe Bill
Barr isn’t that smart. With less than 150 days to the election, Roy Cohn 2.0
emerged from his scrum with Geoffrey Berman, the US attorney for the southern
district of New York (SDNY), looking the worse for wear. In less than 24 hours,
Barr placed Donald Trump in more jeopardy than he was when their brawl with
Berman began late on Friday night.
Instead of
replacing Berman in the near term with a Trump loyalist, the US attorney for
New Jersey, and in the long haul with Jay Clayton, the chairman of the
Securities and Exchange Commission, Audrey Strauss, a career prosecutor, will
lead the “sovereign” district until a Trump nominee clears the Senate.
For Trump
and his attorney general, replacing Berman with Strauss is like jumping from
frying pan to fire. If the dynamic duo had a difficult time taming Berman, a
Trump contributor and a former partner of Rudy Giuliani, reining in Strauss
will prove even tougher.
Already,
Lindsey Graham is heaping praise on Strauss, calling her “highly competent,
highly capable” and lauding her for possessing “the knowledge and experience to
hit the ground running”. That is not good news for the White House. Graham
chairs the Senate judiciary committee.
As a
younger lawyer, Strauss bested the real Roy Cohn in a mob prosecution. Back in
the day, Cohn was Trump’s personal lawyer. Like Cohn, Barr attended Horace Mann
for high school and Columbia for college.
Clayton’s
shot at the SDNY appears to be evaporating. From the looks of things, Chuck
Schumer and Kirstin Gillibrand, New York’s Democratic senators, will be given
the right to spike his nomination. They have already vowed to nix his bid, if
Graham is to be believed. Clayton is a savvy corporate lawyer, not a litigator.
Being a federal prosecutor calls for hands-on courtroom experience.
To be sure,
the relationship between the SDNY and the Trump has been fractious. Its
prosecutors indicted Michael Cohen, another Trump lawyer, and treated the
president as an unindicted co-conspirator. Also, the SDNY went at Giuliani’s
clients, Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas. Proximity to power did not immunize the
pair.
At the same
time, word is that Giuliani’s business ventures may be receiving a
proctological exam from the SDNY, which he led himself before he was New York
mayor. For the president and Barr, targeting Giuliani may have been a bridge
too far. But now they have to worry about Strauss. Sometimes the devil you know
is safer.
Even if
Rudy is left untouched, the latest episode will add another coat of mire to
Barr’s reputation. Being this president’s stooge comes with a price. Like Rick
Wilson says, everything Trump touches dies.
This
weekend, Barr was caught in a massive lie. On Friday, he told the world in
writing that Berman would be resigning. Berman had promised no such thing.
Think of a seven-year old getting busted for raiding the cake batter.
Then on
Saturday, Barr claimed Trump had fired Berman. Perhaps yes, maybe not.
Whatever.
On his way
to Tulsa, the president punted on whether he ordered Berman’s dismissal. The
delegator-in-chief told the cameras that was a matter left for Barr. In the
end, Berman resigned after Strauss’s selection was assured.
This was
far from Barr’s first battle with the truth or the law. Already, he has
mischaracterized the Mueller Report, interfered with the sentencing of Roger
Stone and dropped the prosecution of Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national
security adviser, despite the general’s guilty plea.
Practically
speaking, Barr preaches law and order for the many but appears to show little
concern for the rule of law when it applies to the privileged few. Back at
Horace Mann, he reportedly boycotted a school carnival because its proceeds
went to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. When
peaceful protest stood to impinge on Trump’s staged walk to St John’s in
Washington earlier this month, the attorney general nodded at the use of
flash-bangs and pepper spray.
The
judiciary too appears worried and distrustful of Trump’s AG. Earlier this
spring, Barr earned the ire of Reggie Walton, a George W Bush appointee to the
federal bench. Walton “seriously” questioned the attorney general’s integrity
and credibility. His opinion deployed words like “distorted” and “misleading”
to drive the point across, not language generally associated with the nation’s
chief law enforcement officer.
Barely two
months later, John Gleeson, a former federal judge appointed by the court to
review the justice department’s decision to drop the Flynn case, leveled a
similar charge. His brief used the word “corrupt” nine times, and accused Main
Justice of “gross abuse of prosecutorial power”. By this measure, Eric Holder
and Loretta Lynch, attorneys general during the Obama-years, look awesome.
Once
before, in 1992, Barr served as attorney general, and emerged as a reliable
spear-catcher for a beleaguered George HW Bush. But as Bush’s re-election bid
was tanking, Barr witnessed the Los Angeles riots, resisted congressional
oversight and defined what the law was. It didn’t end well.
Faced with
congressional demands for the appointment of an independent prosecutor to
investigate possible administration improprieties in the run-up to the Gulf
war, Barr declined. Instead, he offered absolution by bandying about such
phrases as “not a crime”, “simply not criminal in any way”, “nothing illegal”
and “far from being a crime”. After Bush lost the election, Barr successfully
pressed for a series of pardons for Reagan administration officials stemming
from the Iran-Contra scandal.
Right now,
the president is trailing Joe Biden. His Tulsa rally looks like a bust. There
were empty seats galore, and members of Trump’s advance team tested positive
for Covid-19. Barr may again be pushed out the door by his countrymen – but not
before he and his boss wreak further havoc.
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