New York Rep. Jerry Nadler, a Democrat who was a House impeachment manager during President Trump’s Senate trial, accused Attorney General William Barr’s conduct of coming close to criminal wrongdoing.
The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said on Thursday that Barr came “awfully close to bribery” through his handling of former Manhattan-based U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman’s dismissal from his post.
“The attorney general repeatedly attempted to entice Mr. Berman to step down voluntarily, even after Berman made clear that his leaving would disrupt certain sensitive cases,” Nadler said to reporters after exiting a closed-door hearing on the subject. “We don’t know yet if the attorney general’s conduct is criminal, but that kind of quid pro quo is awfully close to bribery.”
Judiciary Chair Nadler says “We don’t know yet if the Attorney General’s conduct is criminal, but that kind of quid pro quo gets awfully close to bribery,” leaving Geoffery Berman’s closed-door testimony on his recent firing pic.twitter.com/FBt3mA2yqH
— Ali Zaslav (@alizaslav) July 9, 2020
Berman said in written remarks to the committee that, on June 19 at the Pierre Hotel in New York, Barr wanted to transfer him from the Southern District in New York to the Civil Division at the Department of Justice. He added that Barr wanted Jay Clayton, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, to replace him.
“The Attorney General said that if I did not resign from my position I would be fired. He added that getting fired from my job would not be good for my resume or future job prospects. I told him that while I did not want to get fired, I would not resign,” he said.
Republicans in the committee, including Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan and Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, characterized Berman’s testimony as “a lot of nothing” and said Berman “had his feelings hurt as a consequence of a desired shift in human resources within the administration.”
“But in the description of events, there was no circumstance where Mr. Berman outlined any wrongdoing, any description of any case, or any particular event that would indicate a desire to have Mr. Berman act in a particular way to keep his job,” Gaetz said.
During an interview with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz on the popular podcast Verdict, Barr said the move was not against Berman in particular but rather to restructure the composition of U.S. attorneys at the pleasure of the president.
“The president explicitly has removal authority over all U.S. attorneys. U.S. attorneys are assisting the president to enforce the law. Seeing that the laws are faithfully executed. So they are agents of the president in that respect constitutionally,” he said.
Barr spoke highly of Clayton as a candidate in the interview, calling him a “great U.S. attorney.”
“A lawyer from New York, from one of the greatest law firms in the world, and well-known in New York,” he said. “He was the chairman of the Securities Exchange Commission. And as you know, securities are really important up in New York. And we thought he would make a great U.S. attorney up there.”
