Ousted U.S. attorney, removed by Barr as he investigated Trump associates, lands new job
By James Hohmann
Dec. 1, 2020 at 11:16 a.m. EST
with Mariana Alfaro
During a noon meeting in a suite at the Pierre hotel in Manhattan on a Friday in June, Attorney General Bill Barr pressured Geoffrey Berman to step aside as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. There were sandwiches on the table, but neither man ate. Barr offered to put Berman in charge of the Justice Department’s Civil Division and, a few hours later, floated the chairmanship of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“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 résumé or future job prospects,” Berman told the House Judiciary Committee under oath in July.
Barr fired Berman the day after the 45-minute lunch at which no one ate, but it does not appear to have hurt his job prospects. The 500-attorney law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP announced Tuesday that Berman is joining as a partner. He will head up the white-collar defense, regulatory enforcement and investigations practice.
I asked Berman, 61, by phone on Monday afternoon whether his new firm’s mandatory retirement age of 65 will still apply to him. “I’m not concerned,” he quipped. “I’m not so easy to fire.”
more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/12/01/daily-202-ousted-us-attorney-removed-by-barr-he-investigated-trump-associates-lands-new-job/
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