TODAY’S OBITS
Deasey, Maryellen Kerr, Deborah
NEW YORK » Former Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara had a snickering response to news that his successor as top federal prosecutor was “stepping down” from the job.
“Doesn’t sound like ‘stepping down,’” Bharara tweeted soon after the announcement was made Friday night that Geoffrey S. Berman was out.
He would know.
The Southern District of New York, an office older than the Justice Department itself, has long prided itself on the talent of its prosecutors, the import of its cases and an independence from Washington that has earned it the moniker of “Sovereign District.” But that hasn’t spared officials from being fired by Washington, as both Bharara and Berman have learned in the last three years.
The top prosecutors there have enjoyed an outsize celebrity status, including Rudy Giuliani (later mayor of New York), James Comey (later FBI director) Mary Jo White (later head of the Securities and Exchange Commission) and Bharara himself, who was on the cover of Time magazine before becoming a popular presence on Twitter and legal commentator on television.
“Why does a president get rid of his own handpicked US Attorney in SDNY on a Friday night, less than 5 months before the election?” Bharara wrote in a follow-up tweet that reflected the mystery hitting the office again now.
Nobody would know better what Berman was going through than Bharara, who was told he could stay in his job in a late 2016 meeting with Donald Trump at Trump Tower only to be told to quit the post weeks after Trump’s inauguration along with other prosecutors appointed by President Barack Obama.
Bharara refused to quit, only to be fired the next day.
It was a road map for Berman, who three years later defiantly issued a statement of his own that openly mocked the Justice Department’s announcement.
“I learned in a press release from the Attorney General tonight that I was ‘stepping down’ as United States Attorney. I have not resigned, and have no intention of resigning,” he announced in a statement shortly after 11 p.m. Friday. He showed up for work Saturday morning, telling reporters he was doing his job.
He explained he was appointed by Manhattan federal judges and wouldn’t budge until a successor was confirmed by Congress.
“Our investigations will move forward without delay or interruption,” he promised.
Barr waited until midafternoon Saturday to respond in a way that mimicked what happened to Bharara.
“Unfortunately, with your statement of last night, you have chosen public spectacle over public service,” Barr wrote a day after meeting Berman in Manhattan and offering him other jobs. “Because you have declared that you have no intention of resigning, I have asked the President to remove you as of today, and he has done so.”
By dinnertime, Berman had said he would leave his job, saying in light of Barr’s decision to “respect the normal operation of law” and ask the deputy U.S. attorney to step in, he’d go immediately.