Behind the Berman firing

By the time [AG Bill] Barr was sworn into office in February, [Michael] Cohen, who had paid hush money to an adult film star who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump, had already pleaded guilty and was set to begin a three-year prison sentence, all of which embarrassed and angered the president.

But Mr. Barr spent weeks in the spring of 2019 questioning the prosecutors over their decision to charge Mr. Cohen with violating campaign finance laws.

[...]

At one point during the discussions, Mr. Barr instructed Justice Department officials in Washington to draft a memo outlining legal arguments that could have raised questions about Mr. Cohen’s conviction and undercut similar prosecutions in the future, according to the people briefed on the matter.

The prosecutors in New York resisted the effort, the people said, and a Justice Department official said Mr. Barr did not instruct them to withdraw the case.

[...]

The New York Times reported previously that Mr. Barr had questioned the legal theory of the campaign finance charges against Mr. Cohen, but it was not known that the attorney general went so far as to ask for the draft memo or had raised his concerns more than once.

[...]

Mr. Barr’s unexpected involvement in such a politically sensitive case suggested that he planned to exert influence over prosecutors in the United States attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, long known for operating independently of Washington. Mr. Barr and other officials have told aides and other United States attorneys that the Southern District needs to be reined in.

[...]

More than any other federal prosecutor’s office, the Manhattan office had pursued investigations that angered Mr. Trump. During the case against Mr. Cohen, for instance, prosecutors had indicated that Mr. Trump directed the hush money payments, although the office was not seeking charges against the president.

In addition to prosecuting Mr. Cohen, the president’s former personal lawyer, the office has also been investigating his current one, Rudolph W. Giuliani, over his actions in Ukraine.

[...]

Mr. Barr’s role in the Cohen case also presaged his involvement in two other high-profile prosecutions of Trump associates: Michael T. Flynn, the president’s former national security adviser, and Roger J. Stone Jr., a political operative close to Mr. Trump who was convicted of lying to Congress and other crimes.

[...]

Mr. Barr’s maneuvering in the Cohen case was not his only attempt to insert himself in Southern District cases. After Mr. Barr was sworn in, one of his first actions was to seek briefings on politically sensitive investigations in the office and elsewhere, people briefed on the discussions said.

One matter that Mr. Berman’s office described to Mr. Barr early on was the growing investigation into Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two Soviet-born businessmen who were helping Mr. Giuliani unearth potentially damaging information in Ukraine about Mr. Trump’s political rivals. Mr. Berman eventually announced charges against the two men, in October 2019, and the Southern District has continued to investigate whether some of Mr. Giuliani’s efforts in Ukraine violated lobbying laws.

[...]

The arrival of the coronavirus in New York forced Southern District prosecutors to cancel interviews with witnesses in the investigation into Mr. Giuliani and his former associates, people briefed on the matter said.

The pandemic also forced a delay in the trial of Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman from this October until next February, putting off what could have been an embarrassing spectacle for the president until after the election.

  NYT

Too bad, but I'd bet that his handling of the pandemic will be a greater problem when it comes to the 2020 election than more information about his Russian dealings would have been. His supporters don't give two hoots about the latter, but some of them might care about the former if their relatives are dying.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.