It's late Friday night, so the knives come out ...U.S. Attorney Who Investigated Trump Associates Is Abruptly Oustedhttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/19/nyregion/us-attorney-manhattan-trump.htmlThe United States attorney in Manhattan, Geoffrey Berman, had been leading the investigation into Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer.The Justice Department on Friday abruptly ousted the United States attorney in Manhattan, Geoffrey S. Berman, the powerful federal prosecutor whose office sent President Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to prison and who has been investigating Mr. Trump’s current personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani.
The announcement that Mr. Berman would be replaced was made with no notice by Attorney General William P. Barr, who said the president intended to nominate as Mr. Berman’s successor Jay Clayton, current chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Mr. Barr asked Mr. Berman to resign but he refused so Mr. Barr fired him, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Trump had been discussing removing Mr. Berman for some time with a small group of advisers, the person said.
Mr. Berman has taken an aggressive approach in a number of cases that have vexed the Trump administration, from the prosecution and guilty pleas obtained from Mr. Cohen to a broader investigation, growing out of that inquiry, which focused on Mr. Trump’s private company and others close to him.Over the last year, Mr. Berman’s office brought indictments against two close associates of the president’s current lawyer, Mr. Giuliani, and began an investigation into Mr. Giuliani himself, focusing on whether his efforts to dig up dirt in Ukraine on the president’s political rivals violated laws on lobbying for foreign entities.
Mr. Berman’s office also conducted an investigation into Mr. Trump’s inaugural committee, subpoenaing financial and other records as part of a broad inquiry into possible illegal contributions from foreigners.
Mr. Berman’s abrupt removal came just days after Mr. Trump’s former National Security adviser, John Bolton, alleged in his new book that Mr. Trump sought to interfere in an investigation by Mr. Berman’s office into a Turkish bank, in a bid to cut deals with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
.... U.S. attorneys are typically replaced by their first assistants, but Mr. Berman is being replaced by an outsider who has never worked in that office.
It is a highly unusual decision, but it is not the first time this has happened under Mr. Trump. When Jessie K. Liu left the United States Attorney’s Office in Washington, she was replaced by an ally of Mr. Barr, Timothy Shea, rather than her first assistant.
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They Shoot Lawyers Dont They?: Law In the Third Reich and the Global Threat to the Independence of the Judiciaryhttps://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://scholarlycommons.law.cwsl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D1378%26context%3Dcwilj&ved=2ahUKEwio5bChu4_qAhX0oXIEHQgADcUQFjAEegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw0oLK3nF_loTjQ-v0JVBOAr&cshid=1592624519010-------------------------------
After taking power in 1933, the Nazis quickly moved to remove internal opposition to the Nazi regime in Germany. The legal system became one of many tools for this aim and the Nazis gradually supplanted the normal justice system with political courts with wide-ranging powers. The function of the special courts was to intimidate the German public.
A more permanent national network of Special Courts came into being during 1933, soon after the passage of the Reichstag Fire Decree, which all but eliminated civil liberties. The scope of its power was successively augmented by
- the "Decree to Protect the Government of the National Socialist Revolution from Treacherous Attacks" (21 March 1933),
- the "Law of 20 December 1934 against insidious Attacks upon the State and Party and for the Protection of the Party Uniform",
- the "Law for the Guarantee of Peace Based on Law" of 13 October 1933
- and a number of extensions when World War II commenced.
A special court had three judges, and the defense counsel was appointed by the court. Even as heavy-handed as justice was in Nazi Germany, defendants were afforded at least nominal protections under the regular courts' rules and procedures. These protections were swept away in the special courts, since they existed outside the ordinary judicial system. There was no possibility of appeal, and verdicts could be executed at once. The court decided the extent of evidence to consider, and "the defense attorneys couldn't question the proof of the charges".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sondergericht
