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Bolton lawyers call DOJ attempt to halt book’s publication ‘surreal’ — and too late
But Bolton argues the effort is a naked attempt to prevent him from revealing embarrassing information about President Donald Trump and that, at any rate, it’s much too late: some 200,000 copies of the book have been bound and shipped to booksellers, and nearly every major media outlet in the United States has a copy.
“The Government cannot plausibly argue that Ambassador Bolton has power to stop the Amazon delivery trucks in America, unshelve the copies in Europe, commandeer the copies in Canada, and repossess the copies sent to reviewers or in the possession of major newspapers,” Bolton’s lawyers argue.
https://thumbs.gfycat.com/DisguisedSorrowfulIlladopsis-size_restricted.gif
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Cross-posting 
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Um… hold on to your hats.
Whoa.
BREAKING: MSNBC is reporting he is not resigning and staying put because he is protecting evidence and investigations against Trump and associates.
Trump administration in standoff with Manhattan U.S. attorney
The Trump administration announced Friday night that Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman, who has handled a number of investigations involving the president or his campaign, will be leaving that job, though Berman fired back that he hadn’t resigned and would stay on to ensure his office’s cases proceed unimpeded.
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Is this our Friday Night Massacre - aka Nixon era?
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Continued
Trump fires US Attorney for Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman, but he has ‘no intention of resigning’ - ABC News
4.
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More information on what and who Berman has dug into in terms of those who might be close to T. These are how Berman must have pissed off both Trump and Barr his henchman.
-Michael Cohen - campaign finance crimes
-Giuliani’s dealings- acting as a foreign agent and business dealings
-Lev Parnas & Igor Fruman - associates of Giuliani and tied the Ukraine Impeachment (fall guys it was speculated)
- Halkbank violating US Sanctions against Iran to get to imprisoned American pastor freed in Turkey and links to T who said he would help Erdogan get rid of these investigations (Bolton’s book)
- Went after T’s inaugural committees with subpoenas and illegal contributions
- Berman went after “ardent Trump Supporter Rep Chris Collins” on insider trading
- Berman brought charges against Avenatti (Stormy Daniel’s twisted lawyer)
FILE - In this Oct. 26, 2018, file photo, Geoffrey Berman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, speaks during a news conference at the Department of Justice in Washington. Berman, who oversaw key prosecutions of allies of President Donald Trump and an investigation into Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, is resigning. Attorney General William Barr said Friday, June 19, 2020, that Trump intends to nominate Jay Clayton, the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, to the post. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
](https://apnews.com/56faebddd07e5fc3b349e3e3e30453b2/gallery/a18d61b1d3664a11844fa0157bc6dc6c)WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department moved abruptly Friday to oust Geoffrey S. Berman, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan overseeing key prosecutions of President Donald Trump’s allies and an investigation of his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. But Berman said he was refusing to leave his post and his ongoing investigations would continue.
“I have not resigned, and have no intention of resigning, my position,” Berman said. His statement came hours Attorney General Bill Barr said Berman was stepping down from his position.
The standoff set off an extraordinary clash between the Justice Department and one of the nation’s top districts, which has tried major mob and terror cases over the years. It is also likely to deepen tensions between the Justice Department and congressional Democrats who have pointedly accused Barr of politicizing the agency and acting more like Trump’s personal lawyer than the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.
The move to oust Berman came days after allegations surfaced from former Trump national security adviser John Bolton that the president sought to interfere in an Southern District investigation into the state-owned Turkish bank in an effort to cut deals with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Barr offered no explanation for the move in the statement he issued late Friday. The White House quickly announced that Trump was nominating the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission to the job, a lawyer with virtually no experience as a federal prosecutor.
Hours later, Berman issued his own statement saying he had learned that he was being pushed out through media report. He vowed to stay on the job until a Trump nominee is confirmed by the Senate. The investigations he oversees will continue, he said.
Federal prosecutors in New York are investigating Giuliani’s business dealings, including whether he failed to register as a foreign agent, according to people familiar with the probe. The people were not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The office has also prosecuted a number of Trump associates, including Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, who served a prison sentence for lying to Congress and campaign finance crimes.
Berman has also overseen the prosecution of two Florida businessmen, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who were associates of Giuliani and tied to the Ukraine impeachment investigation. The men were charged in October with federal campaign finance violations, including hiding the origin of a $325,000 donation to a group supporting Trump’s reelection.
Bolton’s tell-all, excerpts of which were posted by the news media this week, included details on how Trump sought to cut a deal to halt SDNY’s investigation into whether Halkbank violated U.S. sanctions against Iran in order to free an American pastor imprisoned in Turkey. Six weeks after the pastor’s release, Bolton writes that on a call with Erdoğan, “Trump then told Erdoğan he would take care of things, explaining that the Southern District prosecutors were not his people, but were Obama people, a problem that would be fixed when they were replaced by his people.” The episode occurred months after Berman assumed the role of U.S. attorney.
A Republican who contributed to the president’s election campaign, Berman worked for the same law firm as Giuliani and was put in his job by the Trump administration. But as U.S. attorney, he won over some skeptics after he went after Trump allies.
Berman was appointed by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in January 2018, months after Bharara was fired after refusing to resign along with dozens of other federal prosecutors appointed by President Barack Obama.
Three months later, FBI agents raided Cohen’s offices, an act the president decried as a politically motivated witch hunt.
The following April, in the absence of a formal nomination by Trump, the judges in Manhattan federal court voted to appoint Berman to the position permanently. He has taken a direct hand in other investigations that have angered Trump.
His office subpoenaed Trump’s inaugural committee for a wide range of documents as part of an investigation into various potential crimes, including possible illegal contributions from foreigners to inaugural events.
And weeks before the 2018 midterm election, Berman announced insider trading charges against an ardent Trump supporter, Republican Rep. Chris Collins. Collins, who represented western New York, has since resigned.
Under Berman’s tenure, his office also brought charges against Michael Avenatti, the combative lawyer who gained fame by representing porn actress Stormy Daniels in lawsuits involving Trump. Avenatti was convicted in February of trying to extort Nike after prosecutors said he threatened to use his media access to hurt Nike’s reputation and stock price unless the sportswear giant paid him up to $25 million.
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Ben Rhodes is a former NSC Obama guy. He and others are shouting loudly…folks, this is Authoritarianism…and compliance from the Republican followers.
MAY DAY. MAY DAY…call them out. Bring justice…now.
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Bait and switch. Remove tough prosecutor for an SEC lawyer with no prosecution experience and previous banking clients which include Deutsche Bank. . Hmmmm
Attorney General William P. Barr on the Nomination of Jay Clayton to Serve as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York | OPA | Department of Justice
Adding this
the proposed replacement for Berman SEC litigator Clayton has had Deutsche Bank as a client. T’s taxes are being decided upon by SCOTUs soon…and no one (from the administration) wanted them released.
Senate Grills SEC Nominee Clayton on Conflicts of Interest
Some clients have included Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Bill Ackman’s hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management and former Ocwen Financial Corp executive chairman William Erbey
…
Throughout the hearing, Democrats including Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, repeatedly said Clayton’s Wall Street relationships are a worry."In today’s confirmation hearing for Jay Clayton, the matter of conflicts of interests was the skunk at the party," said Lisa Gilbert, a vice president of legislative affairs for Public Citizen, which has criticized Clayton’s Wall Street ties.
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Judge denies Trump administration request to block Bolton book
A federal judge on Saturday denied the Trump administration an emergency temporary restraining order to block the release of former national security advisor John Bolton’s book, “The Room Where It Happened.”
So here is the question: who will be the one to buy a copy, digitize it, and release it for free on the internet so we can deny Bolton more revenue?
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Julie Brown of the Miami Herald and a journalist who kept the pressure up on the Epstein wrong doings suggests that this Deutsche angle is worth looking at.
And what about Epstein and SDNY?
Jay Clayton, Trump’s new SDNY attorney nominee, defended Deutsche Bank in $10 billion Russian laundering scam
Clayton defended Deutsche Bank in Russian money-laundering scam’
Clayton, 53, is currently the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) where he has been serving since May 2017. “For the past three years, Jay has been an extraordinarily successful SEC Chairman, overseeing efforts to modernize the regulation of the capital markets, protect Main Street investors, enhance American competitiveness and address challenges ranging from cybersecurity issues to the COVID-19 pandemic,” Barr said in his statement, adding: “His management experience and expertise in financial regulation give him an ideal background to lead the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.”
Investigative journalist and founder of Forensic News Scott Stedman gave Clayton’s background details in a tweet, saying Clayton counted Deutsche Bank as a client and defended them in a massive Russian money-laundering scandal. “There is a criminal investigation into Deutsche Bank occurring in SDNY,” Stedman said, adding: “Deutsche Bank is Trump’s lender.”
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Geoffrey Berman, US Attorney for SDNY speaks - walks into his office and says he is just doing his job. I say he is upholding the Justice in the DOJ, something that Barr will never do.
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Is there any corroboration on this? Every source I am seeing points back to that one post by Steadman, and I am sorry but I’ve seen Scott Steadman post too many stories without evidence. While many articles mention he’s worked for Deutsche Bank, none of them confirm this claim.
EDIT: Actually, this article mentions it:
Took me a lot of digging to find articles on it, and I can’t read the New Yorker article on it, I am afraid, as I am out of reads.
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