Trump has removed top federal prosecutor in Manhattan

WASHINGTON » Attorney General William Barr on Saturday told the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan that President Donald Trump had removed him from the job, deepening tensions between the country’s chief law enforcement officer and a high-profile U.S. attorney who had been overseeing investigations of Trump’s allies.

U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman intends to continue to fight his removal.

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 to work, telling reporters, “I’m just here to do my job.”

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

“Your statement also wrongly implies that your continued tenure in the office is necessary to ensure that cases now pending in the Southern District of New York are handled appropriately,” he wrote. “This is obviously false.”

The administration’s push to cast aside Berman set up an extraordinary political and constitutional clash between the Justice Department and one of the nation’s top districts, which has tried major mob and terrorism cases over the years and is investigating Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.