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
Point, Michael Cohen had a light bulb go off, and in recent times, tried to behave a little bit better and maybe thats whats reflected in the kinder document thats been filed by the Special Counsel. All right. Thanks so much. Our cnn coverage continues right now. This is cnn breaking news. Im wolf blitzer. We welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. Were following breaking news. We have just received two major filings involving the former trump lawyer, Michael Cohen. One from the Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, and another from federal prosecutors in new york. And were awaiting another mueller filing pertaining to former Trump Campaign chairman, paul manafort. Theres lots of news thats breaking right now, significant
developments. I quickly want to go to our senior justice correspondent, evan perez. Evan, like all of us, youve been going through these filings. Give our viewers the headlines. What are you findin out . Well, wolf, this is a tale of two documents of
instrument for him became information rather than an indictment. berman says, quote, it was about 40 pages long, and it referenced a person identified as individual one, as having acted in concert with cohen. there was zero doubt as to the identity of individual one, it was donald trump. after they sent the information to main justice, quote, the next day, robert kuzami received a call from edward o callaghan. he was aggressive. why the length, he wanted to know? he argued that now that cohen was pleading guilty, we don t need all this description. he responded, what exactly are you concerned about? o callaghan proceeded to identify specific allegations he wanted removed, almost all of which referenced individual one. donald trump. it quickly became apparent that contrary to what o callaghan professed, it wasn t the length or the detail of the document that concerned him. it was any mention of individual one. khuzami and o callaghan went
prosecution of former trump attorney michael cohen is leaving. nbc s tom winter is joining us with this story. the sdny is making it sound like typical turnover of staff, if you will. does that sync with your understanding of his departure? reporter: that s exactly correct based on the information and reporting from myself and my colleague, it appears this is purely a personal move. he s the deputy currently and about to leave on april 12th the deputy u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york. that s him pictured on your screen right there. kuzami has led because the u.s. attorney in new york was appointed by president trump. he was recused. berman was recused when the investigation was kind of handed down from robert mueller to prosecutors here in new york. and so robert kuzami, his deputy, became the person in charge of the michael cohen investigation and has led that investigation. he s been commuting since january of 2018 between here and