Trump’s Reason To Oust The Head Of The Southern District

           Trump replaced the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey S. Berman an extraordinary act. He had hand-picked the current head, and the office is famed for its independence. His action will bring a great deal of criticism and scrutiny. What makes it worthwhile?

           Looking at the current docket of the “Southern District,” as it is called, one item stands out from the Trump perspective. The Michael Cohen case was done by the Southern District. Cohen was Trump’s attorney and “fixer” who handled the payoffs to women who could make trouble for Trump for his denials of dalliances. Unlike the Trump cases done by the Mueller Task Force, the Cohen case was done by the Southern District.

           Looking at it as not a big deal, that could make this just one more of Trump’s actions getting even with all his targets: inspectors general, State Department witnesses, vocal intelligence officials, and so on. But this an awfully big and controversial step to take just for revenge. 

The more convincing explanation is that the Cohen case was not closed, not really. The charges against Cohen were that he had arranged that the payoffs to women were treated as campaign expenditures. However, these were political expenditures, not legitimate campaign expenditures. It was seen at the time of Cohen’s case that if Trump authorized this as a campaign expenditure, he was just as guilty as Cohen. Furthermore, Cohen’s plea promised cooperation, and so in an investigation of Trump, Cohen would be witness number one. There was also the possibility that it was not only a campaign violation, but a tax violationm, which would make it worse. 

People forget that there was a bookkeeper in the Trump organization who did the ministerial work of issuing the check. It has never been clear whether he could be persuaded to cooperate. But, he was a loose thread that might unravel the fabric. The case against Trump was never closed. It would be very important for Trump that the investigation not make progress before the election.

Why does changing the U.S. attorney make Trump more secure? Berman had recused himself from the Cohen matter, for reasons that have never been explained. For Trump, it is all too reminiscent of Attorney General Sessions recusing himself from the Russia investigation; he makes himself unavailable to Trump for quashing an investigation.   

Trump has put in a new duo. Both of them have reasons to make Trump more secure. The nominee will be SEC Chairman Jay Clayton. Clayton has no prosecutorial experience at all. He has never been initiated into the ranks of the independent-minded officers who make their prosecutorial calls without fear or favor, particularly in the Southern District. 

Rather, he has been a Wall Street lawyer who represented, among others, Deutsche Bank. Deutsche Bank’s ties to Trump are too extensive to summarize. It is the one bank that stood by him in his pre-politics days, it gave him loans which may have been forgiven, and its Russian money-laundering make it a channel to Moscow that may have been good for Trump. So, Clayton, as ex-counsel for Deutsche Bank, may be understanding and sympathetic about how “unfair” the legal world is for Trump and his allies.

Clayton may not seek confirmation before the election. Confirmation would be an explosive proceeding. So the real new head of the Southern District is the acting head, Craig Carpenito. Carpenito is currently the United States Attorney for New Jersey. It may sound like he has enough on his plate without the Southern District too. He has old and long ties to Chris Christie, which may have something to do with his getting the U.S. Attorney job there. Those ties to Christie may make Trump feel safer.

So that is what it looks like.