Trump Allegedly Tried to Have Democrats Prosecuted While President

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. 

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. 

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.

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. 

“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.”

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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. 

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. 

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.” 

The official, former Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Ed O’Callaghan, told the Times Berman’s claim was “categorically false.” 

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. 

“I walked this tightrope for two and a half years,” he said. “Eventually, the rope snapped.”

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