Throughout my tenure as US attorney, Trump's Justice Department kept
demanding that I use my office to aid them politically, and I kept
declining - in ways just tactful enough to keep me from being fired. I
walked this tightrope for two and a half years. Eventually, the rope
snapped. - from Holding the Line
A cautionary tale about how political forces can undermine the quest
for justice. - Barbara McQuade, The Washington Post
The gripping and explosive memoir of serving as US Attorney for the
Southern District of New York, in the face of the Justice Department's
attempts to protect Trump's friends and punish his enemies.
Ascending to the leadership role of US Attorney for the Southern
District, which includes Manhattan and several counties to the north, is
a capstone to any legal career: it entails guiding a team of the best
lawyers in America in selecting and winning cases that often have global
import. Geoffrey Berman was honored to be tapped for the job by Donald
Trump in 2018. The manner in which Trump had dispatched his predecessor
Preet Bharara was troubling, but the institution was fabled for its
independence. Surely he could manage.
So began one of the most tumultuous two-and-a-half-year stretches in the
over two-hundred-thirty year history of the office. Almost immediately,
Berman found himself pushing back against the Trump Justice Department's
blatant efforts to bring weak cases against political foes and squash
worthy cases that threatened to tarnish allies and Trump himself. When
Bill Barr became attorney general, Berman hoped and believed things
would get better, but instead they got much worse. The heart of Holding
the Line is his never-before-told account of the lengths Barr went to
in corrupting the independence of the office, and the lengths Berman had
to go in preserving it. Finally, Trump and Barr, fed up with Berman's
principles, summarily fired him, though he refused to go quietly and
prevented Barr from installing someone who might be more compliant.
Berman's determined defense of the values of prosecutorial independence,
without fear or favor, made him a hero to everyone who shares those
values.
Holding the Line also relates the remarkable casework of the Southern
District in Berman's time there, including taking down notorious sex
traffickers Jeffrey Epstein and Lawrence Ray, Big Pharma executives, and
vicious criminal syndicates, and repatriating Nazi-looted art. Riveting
in themselves, these stories showcase the esprit de corps that makes the
Southern District so special, and the stakes Berman felt in protecting
its integrity against all foes, up to and including the US attorney
general and the president of the United States.
