A U.S. attorney agreed to leave after being told his office’s probes into Trump allies will continue.

U.S. attorney assured probes of president’s allies will continue

WASHINGTON — An extraordinary standoff between Attorney General William Barr and Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor ended Saturday when the prosecutor agreed to leave his job with an assurance that investigations by the prosecutor’s office into the president’s allies would not be disturbed.

U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman announced he would leave his post, ending increasingly nasty exchanges between Barr and Berman. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, had distanced himself from the dispute, telling reporters the decision “was all up to the attorney general.”

This episode has raised new questions about political interference in the Justice Department, particularly given that Berman was investigating

Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. The office has also prosecuted a number of Trump associates, including Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen.

It also deepened tensions between the department and congressional Democrats, who have accused Barr of politicizing the agency.

The whirlwind chain of events began Friday night, when Barr announced that Berman, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, had resigned. Hours later, the prosecutor issued a statement denying that he had resigned and saying that his office’s “investigations would move forward without delay or interruption.”

On Saturday morning, he showed up to work, telling reporters, “I’m just here to do my job.”

In a letter made public by the Justice Department Saturday afternoon, Barr said he expected to continue speaking with Berman about other possible positions within the department and was “surprised and quite disappointed” by the statement he released.

“Unfortunately, with your statement of last night, you have chosen public spectacle over public service,” Barr wrote, adding that the idea that Berman had to continue on the job to safeguard investigations was “false.”

Berman initially planned to remain in his job until a replacement was confirmed, but he changed his mind late Saturday after Barr said he would allow Berman’s second in command, Deputy U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss, to become acting U.S. attorney.

Berman said that led him to announce he would be leaving, “effective immediately.”

“I could leave the district in no better hands than Audrey’s,” Berman said. He added that her appointment meant Barr had decided “to respect the normal operation of law.”

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said his committee was inviting Berman to testify this coming week.

Geoffrey S. Berman