justice department. his message was unambiguous. it was time for me, jeffrey berman, the u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york and lifelong republican, it was time for me to take one for the home team. he came into my office and closed the door, quote, you re not going to believe the conversation i just had with o callaghan, before sharing the details. the top leadership at doj wanted me to bring criminal charges against a private attorney who had once been president barack obama s white house counsel and they wanted me to bring those charges before election day. i said, you have got to be f ing kidding me. i wish, he said, but no. doj s rationale for this demand had nothing to do with evidence or law. o callaghan kept reminding him that our office had just prosecuted two high profile trump loyalists, republican congressman chris collins and crump s private attorney, michael cohen. he related that o callaghan told him bluntly, quote, it s time for you guys to ev
that s how it starts. that s the very beginning. this was written by jeffrey berman who ran sdny in southern district of new york for half of trump s time in office. he was fired from that job at sdny and fired loudly in a way that made a difference. we ll have more on that in a second. that s important. but now since he is the former u.s. attorney, he has written this book. to put it in the public record how trump and his administration tried to force federal prosecutors to go after trump s political enemies to go after democrats, to help trump s allies. regardless of the law. regardless of the crimes committed or lack thereof. geoff berman was told to bring the prosecution before the midterm elections. told to do so because some republicans had been prosecuted and so now it was time to prosecute a democrat. he was told to even things out. berman refused to do it. he didn t bring that prosecution. so, yea rule of law for a second. what happened after geoff berman refused
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prosecutor, not somebody who would start prosecuting anybody the president tweeted about. so berman, yes, he s written a book. we ll ask him about that and talking about these things now, but credit for squawking. i mean, if heaven forbid you ever find yourself workings for a corrupt would-be autocrat, you ll have to choose your own adventure at the time as well. if you re concerned with having to live with yourself for the rest of your days, may i recommend the resign or get fired option. resign and tell everybody why when it happens. that is what geoffrey berman did. he went out on principled grounds, squawking loudly about why and what for and stopping worse harm by doing so. and now, yes, he s got a book to tell us the rest of it. but it turns out not just the story of how he left, but the rest of it, the rest of what they did that was wrong is a lot. and he wants to talk about all
time, you want to survive first, you know what i mean? it could have easily been a blood bath. so, kudos to everybody there that showed a measure of restraint with regards to deadly force because it could have been bad. really, really bad. now goodman also touched on some positive experiences since january 6th, including escorting then vice president-elect kamala harris on the hair of the inauguration. i tell you, i forgot that we hadn t heard from him, berman, because i ve seen him so in times, you know? he played such an important role. mitt romney certainly knows officer goodman there. and look, it s a year later. these memories don t fade for people. i imagine what he wants as much as anything is justice. no. look, he s walking up that flight of stairs he was on. i used to cover congress and i remember thinking that s not just a flight of stairs it s